Jumping in Puddles

by Claire Allan

  “If he wasn’t already dead, I swear to Jesus I would kill him now,” she sobbed.

  Robyn knelt down by the bed and took her hand.

  “I can’t believe it,” Robyn said.

  “But it explains why Caitlin hasn’t been in touch, doesn’t it? Oh God, Robyn, how could he do it? How could she do it? They were my life, I don’t know . . .” her words trailed off amid a fresh torrent of tears and Robyn simply sat stroking her hair and soothing her as best she could.

  When Niamh’s mother arrived, with the twins each carrying their Tupperware boxes filled with buns, Robyn had got up and explained gently what had happened. Niamh’s mother put the children to bed, telling them Mammy was sick and then she came into the bedroom where her daughter was lying staring out of the window into the black sky.

  “Niamh, darling . . .” she started but Niamh didn’t turn to look at her. She didn’t want anyone to see the humiliation which was etched all over her face. God, what would people think? Seán gave her the perfect life. They had it all and yet she couldn’t be the perfect wife to him. She wasn’t enough. She would never have the chance to be enough again. He had betrayed her in the most devastating way possible.

  “It’s okay,” her mother whispered, pulling the throw from the bottom of the bed around Niamh’s shoulders to stop her shivering.

  Niamh tried to find the energy to reply but she couldn’t. Her fight was gone, she realised. She had spent the last three months grieving for a man who didn’t really exist. She had sat each night cradling his jumpers to her, trying to catch a hint of his smell. She had kept his toothbrush in the mug by the sink, his shoes in the cupboard under the stairs. She had countless imaginary conversations with him where she imagined him as heartbroken as she was at having been separated from her. When things were at their darkest, Niamh had at least consoled herself with the notion that she had been loved so very deeply . . . and now it seemed that she hadn’t been loved at all.

  So she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  When Niamh woke she heard her mother and Robyn chattering downstairs. She knew that she should probably get up and go to talk to them. The old Niamh would have put on her pink Timberland boots, marched downstairs, driven to Derry and kicked some serious arse. Robyn and her mother would have been left quaking in her wake as she opened a big old can of whoop-ass on her former best friend. (She always got a little carried away and American when angry.) She had never been one to shy away from a confrontation in the past. Seán had always said he loved her fire. Well, by Christ if he was alive now he would be feeling her fire, right in his cheating knackers.

  Niamh drifted back off to sleep and dozed fitfully for a few hours before she realised she was hungry. She pulled her dressing gown around her and padded downstairs into their luxury kitchen. Opening the fridge and taking out a bottle of wine and some ham, she set about making herself a snack.

  The gentle hum of conversation was still coming from the living room, so she tried to make as little noise as possible but she should have remembered her mother had ears like a bat.

  “Niamh!” her mother called, before walking into the kitchen and flicking on the light.

  Of course Niamh realised she must look a sight. Connor had managed to smear Weetabix down her dressing gown that morning and while she had intended to put it in the washing machine she hadn’t quite got round to it. Her face was swollen and scourged from crying and her hair was stuck to her cheek on the side where she had been lying.

  She was still wearing her jeans and jumper under it all, and yet she was freezing.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Mum,” she said. “I just want to eat something and have a big fuck-off drink of wine.”

  “Niamh –” Her mother reached out to her.

  “No, Mum,” Niamh replied with steely determination. “I really don’t want to talk about it. I can’t talk about it. I just want to have a drink, and something to eat and to get on with things because, trust me, if I go to pieces now, that’s it.”

  16

  Ruth poured herself a glass of cold Chardonnay and reached for the box of Maltesers on the sofa beside her. Flicking on the television and the DVD player, she heard the first strains of “Be My Baby” play and settled down to watch Dirty Dancing for the one-hundredth time. If real life was ever getting too much, an hour spent with Patrick Swayze and his snake-like hips would bring her round.

  Thomas and Matthew were upstairs, lost in some Wii game or other and, as she hadn’t heard any shouting or loud bangs in the last fifteen minutes, Ruth assured herself they must – for once – be playing nicely and she decided to leave them to it.

  She took a long, cold gulp of her wine and popped another Malteser in her mouth, curling her feet under her and sliding down into the soft creases of her battered old fabric sofa.

  The headache that had been threatening all day was starting to lift, thanks to the two paracetamol she had taken half an hour before – just after Eimear stormed out, slamming the front door so hard that the glass panels rattled. It was a wonder the house was still standing at all these days.

  “If you break those, you’ll pay for them, young lady!” Ruth had called to the closed door, but she couldn’t bring herself to go after her daughter and challenge her head on about her behaviour. Ruth knew why she was pissed off – there had been no movement on the Hallowe’en plans despite at least four major-league tantrums from Eimear and the breaking of at least three of Ruth’s good plates accidentally on purpose.

  The day before, at work, Ruth had sent James an email. She couldn’t face ringing him, or going to see him and having a scene so she figured the written word was her best bet. It had surprised her how her fingers had hovered nervously over the keys as she typed. She wasn’t a confrontational person by nature and it was rarely she would have questioned James. He had been the chief earner while she raised the children, so it was only fair he made the lion’s share of decisions about their family, she had reckoned.

  She had to think this one through carefully. She didn’t want her ex to think she was being a spiteful bitch by turning down a free holiday for the children – it was just that the kids had been through enough upheaval already this year and they had all made it clear that when it came to the Hallowe’en celebrations they would much rather be at home with their mum, piling into her clapped-out Astra and driving to Derry for the fireworks. Then Eimear would go on out with her friends and the boys would come home with Mum, singing spooky songs and telling ghost stories as they drove along the winding roads back to Rathinch.

  Instead now she would be in alone, with Patrick Swayze on the telly, feeling wracked with guilt that her children were spending a night with James and his tart. There would be no fireworks – well, not the traditional kind anyway – with James. He still treated the children as if they were pre-schoolers. Matthew went along with it – he worshipped the ground his daddy walked on – but Eimear and Thomas weren’t as easily placated.

  James,

  First of all thanks for offering to take the children away for Hallowe’en. The thing is, the children and I were kind of hoping to spend the evening together. We had made plans already and that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate your offer, but we’ll have to say no on this occasion.

  Ruth

  It had struck her that the email was very formal in tone but she didn’t want to let one ounce of emotion escape. She didn’t want James to know that he had upset her by storming into the doctor’s that day because she knew that if he thought such a confrontation annoyed her, he would be likely to do it again and again and again.

  That was his way.

  She had hit the send button and waited for a response, but James liked to play games and she should have known that his answer wouldn’t be immediate. She had jumped every time her email refreshed at work, trembled every time the phone rang, and while she sorted through the prescription she kept one eye on the door – just in case. It’s a wonder she didn
’t end up giving someone the wrong advice, or the wrong prescriptions.

  Her answer had come just before Ruth left work for the day. It was one small sentence which put her squarely in her place.

  Change of plan. I’ll be picking them up at five on Thursday.

  That was it and Ruth knew from past experience that James would not be entering into discussion about it again.

  She sighed and rubbed her temples. Maybe the headache wasn’t going away after all. Knowing her luck, it was going to turn into a blasted migraine.

  Having lost interest in Patrick, Ruth lifted her glass of wine and moved to the kitchen table where she sprawled the large newspaper out in front of her and started to search through the jobs section.

  The problem was she didn’t have the damned qualifications most of them were looking for. Yes, since Matthew had started school she had been working part-time with Dr Donnelly, but it seemed experience counted for nothing these days and it didn’t help that she didn’t actually want to leave the doctor’s practice where she knew all the patients by first name and some of the regulars just by the sound of their voices on the phone.

  “You know James should be giving you child support,” Dr Donnelly had offered sensitively that morning over coffee.

  Ruth had smiled to hide her blushes. “We get by just fine.”

  “You can’t on the wages I pay you,” the doctor had replied. “The children are his. He should be handing over money for them.”

  “He has promised me a cheque at the end of the month,” Ruth lied.

  The truth was, since James walked out on them he hadn’t offered her a single cent. The two boys needed new shoes but she would have to eek that money out of her Christmas savings – yet he was happy to whisk them away on a luxury weekend with his fancy woman without caring if they had things they actually needed, like food on the table and a roof over their heads.

  Dr Donnelly had rolled her eyes. “Don’t let him away with it, Ruth. Maybe you could get something drawn up in the courts.”

  Ruth had nodded and stood up, brushing the biscuit crumbs from her skirt. “Maybe,” she replied in that half-hearted way she usually reserved for the children.

  She couldn’t imagine James responding kindly to a court summons – in fact she was pretty sure how he would respond and no one would walk away smiling.

  Downing her wine, Ruth felt tears sting in her eyes. How had her life become such a mess?

  “God grant me the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I can’t, and the courage to know the difference,” she whispered.

  * * *

  In a perfectly shitty end to the day’s proceedings, Eimear didn’t come home until just before one. Ruth had been pacing up and down the living room, and had even gone for a walk along the shorefront just to make sure her sixteen-year-old wasn’t lying dead in a ditch.

  With no signs of Eimear, she had returned home, her head spinning a little from the fresh night air and the half bottle of wine she had downed.

  Her worry was mixed with anger – that her daughter could have such a blatant disregard for her and her rules. But when Eimear walked in, Ruth found herself throwing herself at her, tears pouring down her face.

  “Thank God you’re okay! Where the hell have you been?”

  Eimear looked at her mother, glassy-eyed, and smiled. “Nowhere. Just forgot the time. You know, my watch wasn’t working.”

  Ruth wasn’t sure – Eimear wasn’t slurring her words – but there was just something about her that piqued her suspicions.

  “Have you been drinking?”

  “No!” Eimear protested, moving to the sofa and flopping down with neither style nor grace.

  “Don’t lie to me, Eimear. Have you been drinking?”

  Eimear rolled her eyes in an overdramatic fashion. “Calm down, Mum. I only had a couple and I am nearly seventeen. All my friends are drinking.”

  “So that makes it okay then?” Ruth raised her voice, the relief at seeing her daughter now replaced by the very real desire to give her a good smack. “It’s okay to go out, get drunk, come home at stupid o’clock in the morning just because your friends are doing it?”

  “You are too protective, Mum. I’m not drunk. I had a couple of drinks – not a skinful and it’s a Saturday night – so it’s not like I have school.”

  “For all I knew you could have been lying dead somewhere. I won’t tolerate this behaviour, Eimear. You are still only sixteen and you are still under my roof and while you are here you will do as you are told.”

  Eimear looked at her mother and started to laugh. “Oh Mum,” she said, getting up and hugging her mother half-heartedly. “You’re funny when you’re angry. Calm down and go to bed.”

  She let go of her grasp and walked into the kitchen while Ruth stood staring into space, willing herself to find the strength to deal with her daughter’s moods without losing her temper.

  Ruth turned, taking a deep breath and walked into the kitchen. She switched off the kettle and the toaster, throwing the bread Eimear had been toasting into the bin, and turned to her daughter.

  “Listen to me, Missy. You pull another stunt like that and it won’t be funny. As it stands, you are grounded until Thursday when your dad will pick you all up. Give me any more lip and I’ll take your phone off you as well. I will not have you treating me like something you dragged in on the bottom of your shoe. I am your mother and I deserve your respect.”

  Eimear’s face darkened, her clear blue eyes tightening into a scowl. “Respect? Don’t make me laugh! If you’d had any respect, Mum, you wouldn’t have let him get away with it all these years, would you? And you’re still letting him get away with it. You are pathetic, Mum, and it’s no wonder he ran away with someone else!”

  She stormed up the stairs, slamming the door loudly as she went, and as Ruth heard Matthew cry out from his sleep she wiped the tears from her eyes, painted on a smile and climbed the stairs to soothe her child.

  17

  The following morning Niamh painted on a smile. It was amazing what a good slathering of Clarins Beauty Flash Balm could do, she thought as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. She greeted the twins with a cheery good morning and pulled them close to her.

  “Are you all better, Mammy?” Rachel asked, her eyes wide with concern.

  “Nearly,” Niamh answered.

  “You should take some Calpol. It makes me better when I’m sick,” her daughter chimed, putting her hand to her mother’s forehead to check her temperature. “Hmm, you are a wee bit warm, Mammy. Do you want me to get you a blanket for the sofa?”

  Niamh couldn’t help but smile at her daughter’s caring nature.

  “No, darling, I’m fine. You know, actually, I think a walk along the beach could bring me round. Fresh air works wonders.”

  At the mention of the beach, Connor looked up from his Bob the Builder toys, let out a yelp of delight and jumped to his feet. “I’ll get the hats and coats, Mammy,” he said, heading for the coat cupboard in the hall and starting to pull down everything that came to hand.

  “Can Granny come with us?” he shouted.

  “I think Granny is having a wee lie-in. Sure it will be fun just the three of us, won’t it? We might even stop in the cafe for a bun and juice afterwards.”

  Niamh was wise enough to realise that just after ten was a quiet time in the cafe. The breakfast bunch had gone on to church and there would be an hour’s lull before they poured back out again filled with the Holy Spirit. She wanted to make sure that she talked to as few people as possible.

  Wrapping the kids up in their gorgeous Kidorable raincoats, scarves and hats, she led them out the door towards the beach. It was dry and bright and, as the fresh air filled their lungs, the kids delighted in seeing their breath puff out as steam.

  “Look, Mammy! It’s magic – I’m a dragon!” Connor shouted, standing still and bending over so that he could concentrate all his efforts on breathing “smoke”.
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  Rachel stopped to laugh at him and seemed horrified as the steam billowed out of her own mouth. “But, Mammy, I want my smoke in me,” she wailed, reaching her chubby hands to catch it and Niamh felt herself break into a smile.

  Whatever had happened some good had come out of her life with Seán.

  The children ran on ahead of her, hurtling away from her with the enthusiasm only children or those high on sugar have.

  “Slow down,” she yelled, a wide grin across her face as she tried to keep up with them. She realised as her legs ached that she had let herself go. Even though the weight had fallen off her, it obviously hadn’t been replaced with muscle.

  The lack of sex too, she thought with a sigh, would have contributed. She and Seán had always wanted each other, always been eager to jump into bed and enjoy spending time lost in each other. That made it all harder to understand, Niamh thought as she caught up with the twins amid the sand dunes. There had been no signs – not one – that he had been with someone else. Surely she would have known. Surely there would have been some dampening of his ardour. Surely he would have started taking more care over his appearance. He would have made furtive phone calls. He would have come home late from work more and more. There should have been a faint whiff of perfume on his clothes, but there wasn’t. And Niamh should know. Every night since Seán died she had taken one of his shirts to bed and breathed it in as she tried to sleep.

  She felt a hint of bile rise up, the shock of what she had learned hitting her again in the stomach and she fought the urge to fall to the sand and get the children to bury her in it.