Jumping in Puddles

by Claire Allan

  At the beginning she wouldn’t really talk to any of her old school friends when they came into the shop. And then she went through a really quite aggressive phase – of which she wasn’t proud – where she would just grunt at them and practically throw their Star Bars across the counter.

  That particular behaviour didn’t make her too popular with her boss, which was ironic really given that Mrs Quinn could have won the Olympic Gold Medal for Star-Bar-throwing herself.

  That day, however, when the students arrived in, full of chatter and gossip Ciara smiled. Either she was growing up or going mad, but she was fully looking forward to student life again.

  * * *

  The following morning she was woken by Ella having a good cry in her cot. Hauling herself from her bed – where she had been enjoying a lovely dream about Justin Timberlake – she poked her head over the side of the cot.

  “Hey, baby girl, shush now,” she said, lifting her daughter in her arms. She noticed immediately that she was flushed and her cheeks were burning. “Oh baby, what’s wrong? Are your teeth annoying you, wee woman?” she soothed as she jiggled her up and down. But the jiggling only caused Ella to scream all the louder.

  Lorraine looked distinctly unimpressed as she poked her head around the door. “Are you pinching her or something?” she asked as she wrapped her dressing gown around her.

  “I think she’s sick, Mum,” Ciara said, feeling panicked by her daughter’s temperature.

  “I’m sure she’s fine. She was grand last night but, here, let me have a wee look. There’s nothing up with her that her granny can’t make better.”

  Ella handed her daughter over to Lorraine and almost instantly her daughter quietened – but she didn’t start cooing or chattering as she usually did. She just snuggled her head into her granny’s shoulder and whimpered.

  “She’s burning up, love,” Lorraine said. “Get some Calpol and I’ll strip her off.”

  Ciara ran down the stairs, pulling cupboard after cupboard open looking for the pink sticky medicine that made everything better. As she clattered around looking for the medicine syringe, Lorraine called that she would need to bring a basin as well just as Ella started to squeal all the louder.

  Taking two stairs at a time, Ciara walked into her room just in time for her daughter to projectile vomit everywhere.

  “Jesus and the wee donkey,” she swore, before rushing to comfort her child.

  “Don’t worry,” Lorraine said calmly. “You did worse when you were little.”

  “But, Mum,” Ciara said, feeling tears prick at her eyes as Ella looked at her mournfully.

  “Now, it will be fine, sweetheart. Let’s see if we can get some Calpol into her – but she might not keep it down. Then I’ll phone Mrs Quinn and tell her you won’t be in today, and ring my work too and then we’ll get her to the doctor’s. Stay calm, pet, it will do her no good to see you in a state.”

  Ciara nodded and reached out for her daughter, who was still burning hot. Stripping her down to her nappy, she rocked her in her arms as her mother gave her Calpol and sang “Horsey Horsey” gently to her.

  She was transported back to when she was little and sick and Lorraine sat with her all night, mopping her brow and kissing away her tears, singing gently. She must have been terrified at times – alone with a young sick child. Ciara had no doubt she would have had a complete fit if her mother hadn’t been with her that morning, and she realised, once again, just how much she undervalued and underestimated Lorraine.

  “Mum,” she said, as Ella settled into her arms.

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  * * *

  If Mrs Quinn had been her usual apoplectic with rage at hearing Ciara wouldn’t be in, Lorraine had the good grace to keep that information to herself. She had simply come up and taken over the care of Ella while Ciara got herself dressed and set about clearing up some of the puke. By God that stuff could get everywhere. It was quite impressive when you thought about it. There was even a smattering on the ceiling.

  When the cleaning was done, Lorraine said she had been able to get them an appointment at the doctor’s and that she had called them a taxi to take them down. “I don’t want her getting a wee chill if we walk down,” she had said, her face filled with concern.

  Dressing her granddaughter in clean pyjamas and wrapping her in a blanket, she carried her out to the waiting car and got in.

  Although Ella had calmed down since the major vomit incident, Ciara couldn’t help but worry that something was seriously wrong – like meningitis or the like. She had seen a brochure about it in the doctor’s the last time she was in but she hadn’t really paid attention. She was raging at herself now for not reading it more closely.

  “She’ll be fine,” Lorraine said, rubbing her daughter’s hand. “Babies just like to give you a big scare every now and then. They can be right wee feckers.”

  Ordinarily Ciara would have bristled at any description of her daughter as a wee fecker, even though at times she definitely suited that description – but Lorraine said it with such affection that she didn’t mind this time. Not one bit. And she hoped against hope that Ella really was just being a wee fecker and had not contracted some killer illness.

  God, there were times when she wondered if there was ever a time when being a parent became easy? There always seemed to be something to worry about. First of all it was that Ella wouldn’t feed well, and then she got colic and then she had awful bother teething and would scream herself silly. Then, when she started crawling there was the mission to baby-proof the house, not realising that to make a house truly safe from the evil clutches of a mobile baby you really just have to wrap everything (baby included) in cotton wool.

  They arrived at the doctor’s and she had to restrain herself from running in like an extra from ER shouting for medical attention, ‘stat’.

  By now of course, her daughter, although still pale and mildly lethargic, was smiling and even cooing gently.

  “Ah, Ciara. You’re here with the patient,” Ruth said kindly, stepping out from behind her desk and smiling at her. “How is the wee pet?”

  “Well, she looks better now, but God, I was so scared,” Ciara said, starting to cry.

  “Come on, I’ll take you through to Dr Donnelly. You know, we’ve all been there. They like to scare you, you know.”

  “That’s what I told her,” Lorraine piped up apologetically from the background.

  Ciara looked at her and saw that her mother’s confidence seemed to have deserted her.

  “Of course you did,” Ruth said, with a smile, and led all three through to the doctor’s surgery.

  * * *

  “Well, what’s the verdict?” Ruth asked as they walked back out.

  “She’s fine, a virus. We’re to dose her on Calpol, or give suppositories if she won’t keep that down and see how she goes.”

  “That’s a relief,” Ruth said.

  “Too right it is,” Ciara said.

  “Right, well, can I call you a taxi or run you back up the road? We’re quiet this morning and Dr Donnelly won’t mind if I nip out for five minutes.”

  “That would be lovely,” Ciara smiled.

  “I’m sure a taxi will be fine,” Lorraine said.

  “It’s no trouble.”

  “Come on, Mum. We’ll just go now and get Ella home rather than hanging around here waiting for a taxi.”

  Lorraine nodded, “Well, if you’re sure?” she said to Ruth.

  “Of course I am.”

  On the drive back to the house Ciara wondered why her mother, who was such a strong and vocal character so much of the time, became this quiet shadow of herself with other people? As they drove Lorraine sat in the front, her hands on her knees and her gaze fixed strictly ahead. Ruth’s attempts at small talk were met with nods, smiles and the occasional verbal (one-word) response.

  Ciara almost felt tempted to tell her to “talk to the nice lady properly” but she bit her tong
ue. Still, the silence was getting increasingly awkward.

  “So, Ruth, how come you didn’t come to the group last night?” Ciara asked.

  “Erm, well, I was busy,” Ruth answered awkwardly, adopting the same gaze-firmly-forward pose Lorraine had.

  They looked like a pair of petulant children and Ciara wanted to bang their heads together. They were supposed to be the adults – the ones she looked up to and who took responsibility for their lives and were confident. Christ, she had even read in one of her mother’s magazines that your thirties were supposed to be the best decade of your life, that you no longer have spots on your face or care about the size of your boobs – fair enough, you might care about which direction they point, but the size, well, you accept that. In your thirties, according to the magazines, you accept yourself for who you are and you aren’t afraid to speak your mind. You don’t purposely set out to hurt people but you don’t hold back if someone really gets on your goat either. And here she was looking at these two grown women doing everything to avoid having any level of conversation with anyone apart from on the latest offers in the supermarket or the state of the weather.

  She would have questioned them about it if she wasn’t worried they would both turn on her and if she wasn’t so swamped with emotion after everything that morning.

  But she vowed that she would get the pair of them together – sooner rather than later – and get them chatting.

  If she could find a new her then they sure as hell were going to come out of their shells too.

  36

  “These are my ass-kicking boots,” Niamh said as she stretched her legs out in front of her in the shoe shop and admired the knee-length, real leather, three-inch-heeled boots she had just tried on.

  “They are things of beauty,” Robyn said. “But do I have to worry that my ass is in for a kicking?”

  “You know full well whose ass I’m going to kick.”

  An elderly lady, trying on a pair of beige sandals beside Niamh, looked at her oddly before shuffling along the bench nervously.

  Niamh bit back a smile. “Of course, the ass-kicking is purely metaphorical. I don’t really believe in violence,” she said loudly, before turning to Robyn and adding with a wink, “in most cases, anyway.”

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Robyn asked.

  “Well, no, they’re not practical when it comes to trying not to slide on my ass on our berluddy marble floors, but fashion knows no pain.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant,” Robyn said.

  “And you know that this is something I have to do. And when I do it, I want to look as good as possible. And I want to stand taller than her – if that means crippling myself in admittedly gorgeous, high-heeled boots then so be it.”

  “I’m not going to be able to talk you out of it, am I?”

  “No, and to be honest, I don’t see why you want to.”

  Niamh took off the boots and slipped her feet into her more comfortable (and marble-floor-friendly) Uggs and went to the paydesk.

  She couldn’t understand why everyone seemed so against her having it out with Caitlin. Sure, it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t undo the past, or bring Seán back but it would make her feel more in control.

  And of course she didn’t really want to kick Caitlin’s ass – not really anyway. But she did want answers and she sure as hell couldn’t get them from Seán and she had tried. She had sat the previous night in the newly gutted office, where she was boxing up the last of his law books and bulk supply of Post-its, and asked him loudly to let her know why.

  “Give me a sign. Something. Tell me why you did this?” she had said but got no reply.

  Until she knew why – and when, and where and how often – she couldn’t let it go.

  “C’mon,” she said to Robyn, “let’s go and get some coffee and then we’ll go and get some ass-kicking new jeans and some blingy jewellery too.”

  “Okay,” Robyn said reluctantly.

  Niamh took a deep breath. “Look, Robyn, I don’t expect you to understand why I need to do all this, but I’m asking you to support me. If you are my friend you will help me through this because that’s what friends do – unless of course they are sleeping with your husband, but I’m thinking you never did that. I might be prancing around buying perhaps the most fabulous boots in the world ever, and I might be filling in the swimming pool and redecorating his office and I might seem as if I’m completely in control but this,” she said, gesturing to her shopping bags, “is the only thing keeping me any way sane.”

  “Fair enough,” Robyn said, looping her arm in Niamh’s. “I’m only concerned because I care.”

  “I know, but I’m a big girl and it might not seem like it but I do know what I’m doing. Now, how about we forget the coffees and go for a Cosmopolitan instead, with double the vodka?”

  * * *

  “I could talk to her for you,” Robyn said, sipping on her drink.

  “I know you could, but do you think she would tell you? She hasn’t told you anything so far. Seems she likes her secrets, that one.”

  “I still can barely believe it.”

  Niamh took a deep breath. Could she believe it herself? Well now, if she was honest, she kind of did. She had spent the last two weeks searching her memory for clues. Of course there had been Caitlin’s “performance” at the wake and funeral and the dinner dance where Seán had held her close while Niamh looked on. She had also remembered their squash phase. When she was pregnant and struggling to get off the sofa never mind exert herself, the pair of them would meet up for a quick game. She thought nothing of it at the time – sure Seán came back sweaty and tired, but she thought that was down to a whole different sort of ball game to the one he was actually playing. And, of course, there was that time at the twins’ christening when the pair of them had cleared off to buy some champagne and had taken just that little bit too long about it.

  So, now that she thought about it, even though Seán had never seemed to waver in his affection for her, she could believe he had been unfaithful. After all, what Seán wanted, Seán got – and the cost was never important.

  * * *

  “Can we get a play park instead of the silly pool?” Connor asked wide-eyed that night over dinner.

  “Well, I’m sure we can get some slides, and I’ll ask Mr Dougherty to build a play house. Does that sound good?”

  “That sounds brilliant, Mammy. I don’t like the pool. S’too cold and wet,” he replied solemnly.

  “Can we have pink curtains in the house?” Rachel asked.

  “’Course you can,” Niamh said, spearing her fork into a crunchy potato waffle and dipping it in tomato sauce. Of course once again Seán would have duck disease to see his family eating processed food but for all their years together Niamh had missed the basics of potato waffles and fishfingers. While other mums had complained about the solid diet of Captain Birdseye’s finest fingers, Niamh had blushed. If it wasn’t organic, it wasn’t allowed past their front door. Seán was more than a little anal about it. He had been almost apoplectic with rage one night when she told him how her parents had taken the twins for a Happy Meal as a treat.

  “And can we have tea parties in there?” her daughter asked. “With Poppy and baby Ella?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  “And I can play Power Rangers there too and make it my magic fort?”

  “’Course you can!”

  “Yay!” the twins chirped in unison, spooning (tinned) peas into their mouths with gusto.

  Once the twins were gone to bed and Niamh took up her seat in the den – on the pristine leather sofas Seán had imported from Italy – she pulled her feet up to her and stared into the fire.

  For the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel heartbreakingly lonely but she did wonder why it was that her family and Robyn seemed much more comfortable with her when she was bursting into tears every three seconds and walking about doing her best Mother of Sorrows impression
?

  When she had told Robyn earlier that she was just about holding it together, she had exaggerated. Of course the pain of losing Seán hadn’t gone away. Just that night she had to fight back tears when Connor asked was Daddy “really, really never coming back?”. But that sadness now was because her children were suffering. She couldn’t allow herself to miss Seán any more when he wasn’t the person she had thought he was.

  She sipped from her mug of hot chocolate and thought about how it had just been easier to pretend she was still lost in a fug of grief than to tell her family that she actually felt okay in herself. No, she wasn’t ready to start singing “I Will Survive” at the top of her lungs but she, and her new boots, were doing just fine and dandy.

  And for all her posturing she hadn’t decided exactly when or where she would talk to Caitlin. She wanted her roots done first, that was for sure. She didn’t want to look like a snivelling wreck when she showed up at her friend’s door.

  Liam would be round the following morning to start work on the pool. She would speak to him then about getting some of that soft padding they used in parks laid down so the children could play happily without fear of serious injury. Maybe when that was done she could invite Poppy and Ella round, and young Matthew come to think of it. Connor could do with a decent male influence.