The Better Woman

by Ber Carroll

  ‘Hi.’

  His anorak was slick with rain. He unzipped it and hung it off one of the hooks on the back of the door.

  John was the only other twelve year old in Carrickmore and Sarah’s best friend. His parents owned Delaney’s, the pub across the road. Like Sarah, he went to school in Kilnock, a neighbouring village five miles away. The bus left on the dot of half past eight in the morning. The driver didn’t wait for anyone.

  ‘Single file please,’ he’d order as the children jostled to be first on the bus.

  The best seat was the back one and Sarah always sat there with John. Sometimes they’d talk the whole way along the narrow potholed road to Kilnock. Other days they would hardly exchange a word. It didn’t matter either way. They were best friends and sometimes friends didn’t feel like talking. They both understood this.

  After school, John practised the piano and Sarah did her run. Then John helped out at the pub and Sarah with the shop. But John always called around after dinner. Sarah rarely went to his house. His mother wasn’t very welcoming.

  Tonight John was early, a sure sign that he was having trouble with his homework. This was further evidenced by the copybook he extracted from the inside pocket of his anorak.

  ‘I can’t do the fractions.’ He pulled out the heavy chair at the head of the table and sat down with a despondent thump. ‘Can I see your answers?’

  Sarah opened her copybook at the right page and put it in front of him. His brow furrowed as he compared her answers to his.

  ‘I’ve got it wrong again,’ he sighed.

  John struggled at school only because his head was in the clouds. He sat in class, a faraway look in his eyes, his fingers drumming the edge of the desk in a beat that only he could hear. He was going to be a professional pianist when he grew up. Sarah didn’t yet know what she was going to be, other than someone very, very important.

  Sarah put out her hand. ‘Let me see yours.’

  He obliged and she looked closely at his pencilled workings.

  ‘Look, this is where you went wrong.’

  Their heads close together, hers brown and his fair, she demonstrated how to multiply the fractions. This was their last year at school together. Next year John’s parents were sending him to boarding school in Dublin. There he would have access to master classes at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and his promising talent could be nurtured into something magnificent. Mrs Delaney often said that her son was meant for great things. But that wouldn’t stop Sarah from missing him terribly. The weekends would be the worst. No tennis at the park or wheelies on Whitfield Road. Just the thought of John going away was enough to make Sarah feel desperately lonely. She did her best to block it out.

  Chapter 2

  1984

  ‘Nan, I have an idea.’

  Peggy regarded her granddaughter somewhat warily. Sixteen years old now, Sarah was full of ideas, some of them feasible, all of them well beyond her years.

  ‘What is it now?’ Peggy asked with a sigh, for she found Sarah’s bright ideas draining. Peggy was seventy-four years of age and content for things to stay just as they were.

  ‘We should sell meat.’

  Peggy blinked. ‘Butchers sell meat, child. We’re not qualified –’

  ‘We don’t have to be,’ argued Sarah. ‘The supermarkets in the city do it – just plain things like chicken and chops, prepackaged. If we source them fresh, they’d keep for at least a week –’

  ‘Why would people buy meat from us?’ Peggy cut in. ‘There’s a perfectly good butchers in Kilnock.’

  ‘Nan,’ Sarah’s tone was admonishing, ‘you’ve said many a time that the butchers in Kilnock are only so-so, and that you’d buy somewhere else if you had the choice.’

  Peggy couldn’t disagree: the girl had quoted her verbatim. It always took her some time to warm to her granddaughter’s ideas. It had taken nearly twelve months before she’d agreed to the cash register. She loved it now, though, pressing the buttons and letting the machine do the adding up.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ she promised. ‘Now, time to close shop.’

  Sarah took her cue and walked over to the door. She flipped the sign around so it read CLOSED. The sun, low in the sky, streamed in through the glass panes and outlined her profile: the soft fall of her hair, the roundness of her breasts, her long flat thighs. Peggy, watching on, felt momentarily out of her depth. The child that she had reared was totally gone, replaced by this young woman. How was she to guide her? Ensure that she made the right decisions? Make certain that she was strong enough to take life’s blows? And that she knew right from wrong by today’s standards? Sarah was the spitting image of her mother and that worried Peggy the most.

  God help us all, I hope Sarah doesn’t end up having the same problems as Kathleen, Peggy prayed, not for the first time.

  John’s fingers struck the keys, leaving a trail of loud, crashing chords. Sarah stood by the doorway, unnoticed. She didn’t know the name of the piece, she knew very little about classical music, but she loved to watch John play. The way he hunched over the piano. The way he bobbed his fair head to herald a change in the tempo. The way his long elegant fingers scaled so quickly up and down the keys. During the school holidays he’d practise for hours and hours on end.

  ‘You’re so dedicated,’ she’d say in admiration.

  He’d shrug. ‘If I’m serious about competing, then four hours a day is the minimum I should be doing.’

  John had his sights on the RTE Musician of the Future award. He was giving himself two more years to get to the required standard.

  ‘Nineteen eighty-six, that’ll be my year to win it. Then offers will come in from all over the world.’

  ‘What about Trinity College?’ Sarah had asked. ‘I thought you were going to do a Bachelor of Music there.’

  ‘Mum’s idea!’ He’d thrown his eyes to heaven. ‘She wants me close to home so she can keep her beady eye on me.’

  John finished the piece softly, his foot pressing on the pedal to mute the sound, his head hanging as his fingers eased out the last chord.

  ‘Bravo!’ Sarah clapped and he looked around with surprise.

  ‘I aim to please.’ His face, with its summer tan, broke into a smile.

  ‘Welcome home.’

  John had spent the first few weeks of summer on a student exchange in France.

  ‘Merci,’ he replied.

  ‘How was it?’ she asked.

  ‘Magnifique!’

  Sarah came further into the room. Plush with rich red curtains and swirly patterned carpet, it was very different to her grandmother’s plain front room.

  ‘Play me something I know,’ she said, standing behind him.

  He immediately launched into ‘Karma Chameleon’.

  Laughing, Sarah clapped her hands over her ears. ‘Anything but that.’

  Without a second’s thought he switched to ‘Red Red Wine’.

  ‘Better,’ she said when he looked to her for approval.

  He lolled his head, pretending to be drunk.

  Sarah giggled, glad he was home and that she had her friend back.

  ‘You make a very believable drunk,’ she told him.

  He grinned. ‘The best thing about the trip to France was the wine. The family had it every night – kids and all – it was like water to them.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Sarah, her eyes wide.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘I got to like it. You should try some.’

  The thought occurred to them both at the same time. ‘Tonight?’ he suggested.

  She nodded. They didn’t have to agree on a place. All their previous misdemeanours had been carried out in the same place: the park.

  That evening, when the shop had closed, Sarah went upstairs to her bedroom. A small box-shaped room, its décor was depressingly old-fashioned. The walls were covered in floral paper and the floor in a plain green carpet. Redecorating hadn’t been one of the ideas she’d managed to sell to her grandmot
her just yet.

  Sarah surveyed the meagre contents of her wardrobe. Money was tight, the profits from the shop providing only just enough to pay the bills, with little left over to spend on clothes. She slipped on her only pair of jeans. Standing in her bra, she tried to decide between a plain white T-shirt and a fluorescent pink one.

  Which would John like?

  She startled at the thought.

  Why would I dress to please John?

  Confused, she put on the one she thought he would like the least: the bright pink. She surveyed herself in the mirror as she brushed her long, unfashionably straight hair. Several of the girls in Kilnock Secondary School had perms. Her grandmother had nearly fainted when she’d said she’d like one too.

  ‘Are you gone mad? Your beautiful hair would be ruined with a perm.’

  Sarah sighed and wished that Peggy wasn’t so set in her ways. Wished that she had a mother closer to her age and able to understand things like fashion. Wished that she possessed a pair of big hoop earrings to make her outfit look a little more with it.

  ‘I’m off to see John,’ she called out as she descended the narrow stairs.

  ‘Don’t stay out too late,’ her grandmother called back.

  John was like family. Peggy wouldn’t have been quite so casual if it had been another boy that Sarah was going to see.

  Sarah crossed over the road towards the park. The freshly mowed grass stuck to her sandals. John was on the far side of the oak tree, sitting under a canopy of leaves and acorns. He wore faded jeans and a black T-shirt. His fair hair was tousled with gel and his navy-blue eyes were strangely unnerving as they smiled at her.

  ‘Do you think your mam and dad will notice?’ she asked, eyeing the bottle of red wine in his hand.

  ‘Nah,’ he replied. ‘Sure, they have tons of bottles in the cellar – and if they did notice one missing, they’d only think Granda was up to his usual tricks.’

  John’s grandfather lived in the room over the pub, whilst the rest of the family lived in the adjacent bungalow. Granda Delaney, very fond of the bottle, often couldn’t resist having so much temptation so close at hand.

  Sarah kneeled down on the grass and sat back on her heels. She glanced surreptitiously in John’s direction. It wasn’t only the tan, or the gel in his hair, or his new clothes. He was different. What was the word? Sophisticated? Yes, he was more sophisticated. She felt as though he was someone she didn’t know all that well. Which was ridiculous!

  ‘Do you want to uncork it?’ he asked, totally unaware of her feelings.

  She nodded. ‘You’ll have to show me how.’

  He handed her the corkscrew.

  ‘Okay, first peel off the covering . . . Now stick the screw in . . . Keep turning it . . . that’s right . . . now pull.’

  Sarah pulled but the cork remained stubbornly in place.

  She felt his arms come around her, the heat of his body against her back, the flexing of his muscles as he pulled with all his might. The cork popped and the bottle jerked, spilling some of its contents on Sarah’s jeans.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, mopping the angry splash of red with his handkerchief.

  ‘Did you bring glasses?’ she asked, feeling very unsettled by the sensation of his hand on her thigh.

  ‘No – we’ll have to swig from the bottle.’

  The wine tasted heavy and sweet. They took turns with the bottle while John recounted the finer details of his stay in France.

  ‘There are four kids in the family – Pierre is the second oldest. They live in Brittany, in the countryside . . . a bigger village than this. Pierre’s mum and dad are really cool. They play loud music . . . drive really fast . . . ’

  John didn’t say that Pierre’s parents were worlds away from his own: he didn’t need to spell out the obvious. Joe and Mary Delaney were both nudging sixty. Their marriage, and John, had come late in life. Their life revolved around the pub and Mary’s aspirations for her son.

  Sarah drank some more wine. She felt light-headed. But happy.

  ‘Summer holidays are boring without you around,’ she told him.

  ‘Ditto,’ he replied.

  ‘You’ve just been to France, you idiot. You can’t have been bored.’

  He shrugged. ‘I missed you.’

  He stared down at the ground and Sarah sensed a change in his mood. She wished she could see his eyes.

  They were mostly silent for the next half-hour as they passed the bottle to and fro. Dusk fell steadily and everything but John lost focus for Sarah. Her feelings puzzled her. This was her friend. She had played with him, grown up with him. Why was her heart thumping like this?

  ‘This feels different,’ he said, reading her thoughts.

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  His hand reached through the dusk and touched her cheek.

  ‘Can I kiss you?’

  She scanned his shadowed face, the new chiselled lines to his cheekbones, the hair on his jaw that would eventually need to be shaved. Her childhood friend was gone. This was someone else: a grown-up stranger. And she wanted nothing more than to kiss him.

  His lips were soft and tentative and warm. He tasted like red wine. Intoxicating. She clasped her arms around his neck and it seemed easier to lie back in the grass than to stay sitting. The heaviness of his body pressed her shoulder blades into the ground. She could feel his heart beat. She could smell the fresh grass and the citrus scent of what must have been his aftershave.

  ‘Sarah! Sarah!’

  The voice pushed them apart. It was Peggy, calling from the shop door.

  ‘I have to go,’ Sarah whispered, straightening her T-shirt.

  John nodded.

  Unsteady, she got to her feet.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ he said.

  She ran across the park and called ahead to her grand mother.

  ‘I’m here. I’ll just lock up the yard before I come in.’

  Thankfully, Peggy went back inside. Sarah darted around the back and made much ado about bolting the gate.

  Then she stole in through the shop and up the stairs.

  ‘Goodnight, Nan,’ she called down from the landing.

  Once inside her room, she had a long look at herself in the mirror. Her hair was askew, her cheeks pink, and her jeans a mess of red wine and grass stains. Her lips were the biggest giveaway. They looked bigger than usual. Stung.

  Thank God Nan didn’t see me!

  Sarah got ready for bed. She washed at the basin, brushed her teeth and imagined John doing the same across the road. When she finished brushing her hair, she picked up the picture frame that had pride of place on her dresser. The black and white photograph was of a bashful groom and a slip-of-a-thing bride.

  ‘Is this how you felt when you first kissed Dad?’ she asked her mother’s image.

  As usual, an answer wasn’t forthcoming and Sarah was left to work things out on her own. She set down the frame and climbed into bed. The mattress creaked as she leaned over to turn off the lamp. She lay wide-eyed in the pitch black. Her heart was still thumping, her lips still tingling. Her first kiss. How perfectly right that it had been with John. She’d never ever forget this night. This happy confused feeling.

  Chapter 3

  1986

  ‘Well, Sarah, today’s the big day,’ Mrs Fahey announced in a dramatic tone. ‘What time are you expecting the results to be out?’

  ‘We’re to go to the school around eleven.’

  Sarah felt sick at the thought. Five years of study would soon culminate in a single sheet of paper: her Leaving Certificate results.

  ‘Best keep busy till then,’ was the older woman’s recommendation. ‘Now, twelve pounds fifty, did you say? Would you mind putting it in the book for me?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  Sarah took out the red book from under the counter. Mrs Fahey’s account already had eighty pounds owing. Her husband was out of work.

  ‘He’s still drawing the dole,’ Mrs Fahey l
ooked embarrassed, ‘and it isn’t enough to keep up with the bills. Please God, there’ll be more work around after the holidays.’

  She didn’t sound at all convincing. Her husband, unskilled and on the wrong side of fifty, had slim chance of finding work with the record levels of unemployment in Ireland. She knew that, and so did everybody else.

  After Mrs Fahey’s departure, Sarah flicked through the book of debtors. The total amount owing was higher than it had ever been. Some of the balances were unrecoverable.

  Peggy, using a newly acquired and much detested walking stick, hobbled in from the back.

  ‘Another one on the book?’ she asked when she saw what Sarah was reading.

  ‘Yes.’

  Peggy tutted. ‘I’ll have to start refusing credit, else we’ll be put out of business.’

  It was an idle threat. Sarah knew that her grandmother would rather shut up shop than take a hard line with her long-standing customers.

  We need to make our profits bigger, Sarah thought, so that the bad debts are easier to absorb.

  She glanced at Peggy. The old woman looked weary and irritable. It was clearly not the right time to have a discussion about profits.

  Sarah arrived at the school at ten minutes to eleven. Most of her old class were already there, waiting. The confident girls looked nervous, the nonchalant girls tense. There was no getting away from the fact that this was one of the most important days of their lives.

  ‘Sarah! Over here!’

  A short girl with bouncing dark curls waved furiously. Nuala Kelly was a relative newcomer to the school, having joined at the start of sixth year. Her father worked for the Bank of Ireland and had relocated his family from Dublin to Cork as a result of a promotion. On her first day at Kilnock Secondary School, Nuala had promptly decided that Sarah Ryan was going to be her new best friend. Nuala hated physical exercise of any form and couldn’t keep quiet for more than five seconds, but she wasn’t at all fazed by the fact that her new friend’s personality was so different to her own. For her part, Sarah was glad that Nuala had insisted on being her friend. She had other friends in her class, but they were superficial girls who were happy to talk only about themselves and didn’t notice how little Sarah revealed. By contrast, Nuala demanded to know every detail of Sarah’s life. She’d invited herself to see the shop. She’d chatted away to Peggy as if she’d known her all her life. And, when she’d met John on one of his school breaks, she’d immediately guessed he was something more than the boy-next-door.