by Claire Allan
He’d felt sick when he’d come through the door that evening. If he was honest the first thing he wanted to do, as the cold sweat broke out over his body, was to turn and run for the hills.
Still he had promised his mother that he would give it a try. She had morphed into the world’s most over-protective mother the day Laura walked out. But instead of helping him cope with the misery of the last few months, she seemed to make it worse.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he’d scolded when she’d arrived earlier that day.
“Like what?” Agnes said, wounded at the harshness in his voice.
“Like I’ve got some terminal illness or something. I’m managing, Mother.”
“But it’s not right,” she said. “You here, on your own, with a child to care for. That woman is an affront to womanhood.”
Liam rolled his eyes. Sure enough there were certain variations on this theme but almost every conversation with his mother included at least one barbed remark on what a god-awful bitch his wife (he refused to use the word ex) was.
“How on earth is Poppy going to cope with no mammy?”
“She has me,” Liam said. “And we get on just fine. And besides, Laura isn’t dead. She’s just down the street!”
His heart had lifted a little at the thought of his precious daughter – so precocious and full of life – as determined as Laura had ever been. At five years old, she was missing her mother terribly, even if she was only down the street. As a consequence Liam had been overcompensating wildly for her disappearance. She would want for nothing, he promised himself.
“It’s not right,” Agnes sniffed, sitting down on the sofa, running her finger along the coffee table for signs of dust. To her chagrin, her son seemed to be coping with his household duties just fine. “I was talking to young Detta O’Neill today at the church hall. She is starting a new course for single parents. I know she’s a bit flighty and all that but she seemed to think it would be a great way for people to mix and make friends. I told her you would go along.”
“I will do no such thing,” Liam replied.
“Yes, you will, and it will do you good,” Agnes replied and Liam knew from the steely look in his mother’s eyes that saying no was not an option.
As luck would have it, he bumped into the very self-same Detta O’Neill as he walked to work after his lunch break. She was wandering down the street, staring at the sky, her golden curls hanging loosely around her neck. With her flowing skirts and permanent smile she looked very much like a rose among the thorns of Rathinch’s female population. Most of the other women in the village walked around with their lips pursed like cats’ arses as they whispered gossip beneath their breath at every given opportunity.
Detta didn’t look like the gossiping type. In fact, as she noticed him and smiled, waving and crossing the street, she looked like the friendliest face he had seen in a long time.
And she persuaded him, with her curling hair and her flowing skirt and her non-cat’s-arse kind of a face to come along and sit in a room with a load of definitely cats’-arsey women and chat about his fecking feelings.
* * *
As expected, when he walked into the church hall it hadn’t taken long for things to take an “all men are bastards” turn.
“How are you feeling tonight?” Detta had asked.
“Angry,” the woman he recognised as Niamh Quigley answered. “Angry and tired.”
“Anger’s a good part of the healing process,” Detta had answered in a soothing tone.
“It’s not so good for my china though,” Niamh sniffed with a half smile.
She wasn’t fooling Liam though. Even though a smile danced on her lips there was such a deep sadness in her eyes that Liam almost felt as if he was intruding on her grief by looking at her.
“Well, I’m fecking angry too,” a young girl with jet-black hair stated. “My boss gave me grief for needing to go home early today because the baby was sick. What was I supposed to do? The crèche won’t keep them if they’re vomiting.”
She was young enough to be his daughter and yet she had a child of her own. Liam shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“Of course, Ella’s daddy doesn’t have such worries. He’s just getting on with his life. You wouldn’t even think he had a child.”
“We’re not all bad,” Liam wanted to shout, but he didn’t. He kept quiet, put his head down and hoped that if he didn’t speak this whole thing would be over as soon as possible – just as he hoped that if he kept quiet and didn’t make a fuss about his wife running off with yer man from up the road, this too would all be over soon and Laura would be back where she belonged.
4
Ciara
Things I hate about my life:
* Everything. I didn’t want a baby. It wasn’t my fault I got pregnant. He told me he loved me.
* My mum. She hasn’t looked at me the same way since I told her I was pregnant. I miss her and how we used to be. She used to be my best friend.
* Sometimes I think she loves Ella more than me.
* The fact that no man will ever, ever look at me again because I’m seventeen and have a baby and sure who wants spoiled goods?
* This place. There is no craic to be had in Rathinch. How is anyone here supposed to have a life? Me and Ella are going to get out of here as soon as we can. I’ll show everyone.
* * *
Ciara sighed and sat back in her chair chewing her pen. This was so not her scene. There was nothing about this that appealed to her but it was either come here or spend another night in with her mum and Ella, with her mum watching her every move and commenting on every little thing she did with her daughter.
She had been serving in the shop earlier when Detta came in to get some milk and invited her along.
“It’s going to be all about being positive and strong in yourself as a lone parent,” she’d said while Ciara rang in through her shopping.
Detta was nice, Ciara thought. She hadn’t been one of the crowd who whispered behind her back about getting pregnant and she had actually cooed over Ella when she took her out in her pram. Some of the other old biddies had crossed the road to avoid her or tutted at her as they walked past.
She had long since been tempted to start a rumour that it was one of their husbands who had impregnated her, but she wasn’t sure they wouldn’t have taken her and burned her at the stake if she started with any of that nonsense.
“Who’s going to be there?” Ciara asked, mentally trying to figure out who in the village was single with kids at the moment.
“I’m not sure. To be honest, I’m not sure anyone is going to be there. I spoke to Niamh Quigley – you know, from the big house up the road. She said she might make it.”
Ciara nodded. She felt sorry for Niamh – she always looked so sad when she walked through the village with her twins. The old biddies crossed the road to avoid her too.
“If you came along it would really help,” Detta pleaded and Ciara agreed – all she would have to do was ask her mum to baby-sit.
* * *
“I’ll check, you know,” Lorraine Boyle had said, looking her daughter up and down with a look of curiosity on her face.
“You can ring Detta and check if you want. I’ve nothing to hide,” Ciara said defiantly, bouncing her baby on her knee. Her mother may well have mellowed and now doted on Ella, but she watched Ciara’s every move waiting for her to slip up and reveal who the daddy was – but there was no way that was ever going to happen. Not a chance.
* * *
Ciara had arrived five minutes late and looked around the room at the village’s other lone parents. Sure enough Niamh was there, and there was Ruth and Liam. The scandal of their partners running off with each other had long been the main topic of conversation for the gossips who gathered in the shop.
Ciara felt sorry for them too – to have everyone talking about their misfortune like that – but then she reminded herself, if the locals were talking about them t
hey weren’t talking about her, and that had to be a good thing.
She smiled a quick hello and sat down. Detta said hello, welcomed everyone and handed out some notebooks.
“Let’s get started,” Detta said in a strange sing-song voice she hadn’t used in the shop earlier. She had some oil burning in the corner of the room but it failed to cover up the faintly mouldy smell of the floorboards.
“I want you to write a hate list,” Detta said.
Ciara had raised an eyebrow suspiciously. Glancing around her, she noticed her other three group members had raised their eyebrows too. There was funky symmetry to it.
“A hate list?” Niamh had piped up.
“Yes, a list of things you hate about your life. I find with things like this that people have a lot of ‘hate’ or discontent they need to get out of the way before they can start being constructive and moving on. So I figured, as we might not all want to spill to each other just yet, sure we can just write it down and be done with it.”
Ciara sighed. She didn’t fancy writing a hate list. Part of her was worried if she started she wouldn’t stop, but Detta just smiled – a mad hippy kind of a grin from behind her blonde curls – and it was clear she was very excited about the notepads and shiny new biros she had just handed out.
But then, Ciara thought with a grin, this was the woman who had obviously gone slightly bonkers in Eason earlier buying up every shred of coloured paper and glitter pens to make overly bright and colourful signs to advertise the one thing the rest of the village was ashamed of.
But as Niamh, Ruth and Liam all bowed their heads and started writing, Ciara realised she didn’t have much of a choice other than to start writing herself, or at least if she wanted to fit in here, even a little bit, she needed to write. She didn’t want to make them all think she was just some stroppy teenager from the outset, even if she was, in fact, just some stroppy teenager.
5
Niamh sat on the porch of the house, on the swing she’d insisted Seán buy, and pulled her cardigan around her as she sipped from a glass of wine and listened to the wind whistle in the trees and her children breathe softly through the baby monitors.
She was trying to process the day which had just passed, and the fact that she had attended one of those happy-clappy support groups she had always mocked in the past.
* * *
“Let’s get started,” Detta had said, rubbing her hands together with a sense of anticipation. Niamh had looked down at her list, hoping she wouldn’t be asked to read it aloud. She was here for support, yes, but she didn’t really fancy being here for some ritual humiliation. Besides it was okay for her to write bad things about Seán, but she wasn’t ready to have anyone else think badly of him. It would be the worst type of betrayal.
She would sink Caitlin for a penny though, so she took a deep breath and waited for Detta to ask her to start talking.
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, all your anger and hurt for tonight, we can actually do something productive,” Detta said. “Now take your lists and tear them up, as small as you want, and throw them in the bin. You’ve let that go now, we don’t need to go there again tonight. Let’s just introduce ourselves.”
Niamh took a deep breath – what seemed like her first breath in about five minutes – and started tearing up her list. She was allowed to be angry, she reminded herself, but once that subsided her grief would crash in again.
“You all know me,” she said, her voice shaky. “I’m Niamh and I’m thirty-three. You know I have twins. No doubt you have seen us down on the beach.” She gave a half smile. This felt mildly like she was on some weird Donegal version of Blind Date and Detta was Cilla with her “What’s your name and where do you come from?” nonsense. She took a deep breath and continued. “And you will no doubt know that my husband died three months ago when he crashed his car driving home to us.”
If she said it fast, it didn’t sound so devastating.
Liam, Ruth and Ciara nodded, before looking downward. Niamh was used to this look, used to people not really knowing what to say in reply to: “My husband died in a horrendous car accident and my life is fucked.”
“I’m here because my mother and my friend think it will help. I know I’m in a different position to the rest of you and, well, I’m not sure what good this will . . .” Much to her shame she started to cry, fat, wet tears plopping on the blank page of her notebook making the lines run into each other.
Detta walked over and sat beside her, while Ciara rustled through her bag for a tissue. “I always have tissues. Ella throws up a lot,” she told the room before handing a crumpled Kleenex to Niamh. “Don’t worry, it’s clean,” she added with a smile.
Niamh felt herself warm to her. The poor girl couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen and here she was in a room filled with old fogies who had all made an unholy mess of their lives.
“Thanks,” Niamh mumbled, blowing her nose loudly into the tissue and putting it in her pocket.
“Look, it’s okay to cry,” Detta said, rubbing her shoulder. “I can’t imagine what you have been through.”
Niamh wanted to hug her. It seemed for the last three months everyone and his mother had been telling her how they could imagine how awful it must be, when all she could think was there was no one who really knew how it felt. But she decided against the hug. It was bad enough that she had already cried in front of these people. Whatever would they think of her? The flaky woman from the big house who burst into tears every time someone spoke to her. What a way to make friends and garner the admiration of her neighbours!
Liam spoke next: “My mother insisted I come here tonight,” he said, red-faced. I suppose you all know my story too – well, at least I’m fairly sure you know it, Ruth, eh?” He laughed nervously, Ruth joined in, her laughter sounding forced.
Ciara bit back a giggle and, smiling, winked at Niamh.
* * *
Niamh smiled now at the memory of the wink Ciara had given her as Liam and Ruth explained their weird connection. She had smiled back. It was only a small smile though – she didn’t feel she was allowed anything more, except when the twins were about when she absolutely had to pretend that everything was, as that annoying purple dinosaur her kids loved so much would say, A-okay. She was great at it though – she would have made a wonderful CBeebies presenter if bright colours had suited her.
When the session had finished she’d felt at least she had one ally, and possibly four, in this godforsaken village and given that it seemed her friendship with Caitlin was pretty much past the point of rescue, she would take any ounce of friendship she could get.
The loneliness was the hardest thing to deal with. Everyone else had moved on, it seemed. Even if they pretended to still be interested she could see their eyes glaze over that little bit when she talked about that night and her husband and her grief. She couldn’t be angry with them and she couldn’t say she really blamed them. There were nights – like tonight – when she wanted to shut thoughts of it all out herself. She wished at times that someone would erase every memory of Seán from her life and that she could move on and away without the gut-wrenching grief eating into her soul.
“Fuck it,” she said aloud and pulled her knees to her. “I don’t want to feel like this any more. Seán, do you hear me? I don’t want to do this! I didn’t ask for this and I didn’t want you to go.”
She threw the remains of her wine onto the lush green grass and, slamming the door behind her, went inside and climbed the stairs. She walked through to the twins’ bedroom and felt their hair damp with sweat. Lying down beside Connor, curling into his tiny body, she fell asleep.
It was okay to cry, but she didn’t want to cry any more.
6
Ella woke early and Ciara tried to keep her patience. She was tired though and she knew by the time she finished her shift at the shop she would be totally wrecked. Her old friends would be hitting the town tonight – while she would be hitting the h
ay.
Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was five thirty. It was much too early to be awake and dealing with a gurning child. She lifted her daughter from her cot and tried to soothe her. She’d only been crying a matter of minutes when the bang came on the wall.
“Ciara, could you try and settle her, please? I need my sleep,” Lorraine called gruffly.
Ciara took a deep breath and started counting to ten. Her mother was a decent enough support but after ten months of interrupted nights she had finally snapped and told Ciara she was on her own with the early rises. Ciara could understand – her mum worked hard all day – but then, so did she. She hadn’t gone back to school after having the baby. She couldn’t face being the talk of the playground and, besides, she fancied her hand at earning a bit of money. Then again, if she had known just how much Lorraine would make her stand on her own two feet she might have taken her chances with double maths.
Groaning at the thought of another day under the beady and watchful eye of her boss, Mrs Quinn, while out of her head through lack of sleep, Ciara walked down the stairs and opened the fridge. She took a long cold slug of Diet Coke. She normally wasn’t the tea-and-coffee-drinking sort, and by God did she need the caffeine hit right now! If there had been a gallon of Red Bull anywhere in the house she would have downed it as quickly as she could.
Half an hour later she found herself in the living room watching some brightly coloured puppets singing a song about rainbows on TV, Ella now sound asleep beside her but her own mind much too awake, thanks to the fecking caffeine, to drift off herself.