“Ready for duty!” a sweet voice echoes as Phoebe comes out in her black trousers and black T-shirt with discreet C&C’s Cottage embroidery in the left-hand corner.
“Hi, love!” Tony hugs her.
“Hey, Dad and C!” she says, and I give her a huge hug. “You know, me and Susan had the funniest Skype today. She’s impossible to get on the phone, that one, but I got her on her break on the salon laptop. She is so excited to come out and see the place when she can. Who knew beauticians had to take so many courses? Who knows, I told her she might get sick of clipping toenails and come to work here yet. After all, it’s our nest egg!” Phoebe giggles.
“What did she say to that?” I ask as I glance up at her from the pale lavender primroses I am hand-picking to sit on the tables.
“She said stranger things could happen. Imagine, I’ve never had a sibling. I’d love her to come out!” Phoebe grins at me.
“Okay, Phoebe, let’s get you inside. There are glasses to be polished,” Sandra says.
“Yes, ma’am!” Phoebe clicks her heels and off they go.
I continue to clip the primroses. I’m eerily calm now. Cooking is what I know I can do well. My food is good. It’s not crazy ambitious, it’s not rocket science: it’s good, nourishing, tasty home-made food. I need to learn so much more. One day, when I have the experience, I will tell Lar that Yvonne can come out at last and take over the St Ives branch. I’ve already confided in him and he totally understands. This place I know holds my future.
“Just going to give the heater holders another lick of yellow paint.” Tony pulls a rickety old stepladder behind him. I watch as he goes off and returns with a tin of the bumblebee-yellow paint we had chosen together. He grabs an old paintbrush and climbs up.
He is zero maintenance. Just a fantastic man. I am truly blessed. We had had the deep-and-meaningful a while ago, and I’d told him a few home truths.
“I don’t want to have to answer to anyone any more. I want my life to be my own. If that’s incredibly selfish, at least it is the truth,” I’d said quietly but firmly.
“Explain that please?” He’d held my hands.
“It’s just independence I crave now. Saying when, why and how,” I’d told him.
“Oh, kinky,” he’d joked, but then his expression had changed. “I dedicated my whole youth . . . most of my life, to Phoebe. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have had it any other way, but I get exactly what you are saying. It’s time to be us now. I don’t want ties either, Courtney; I want a lover who I am crazy, head-over-heels for. I want you to love me back.”
“I do, but I just want to make sure we are on the same page,” I’d told him.
“We are,” he’d agreed with a huge smile.
Back in the present moment, at C&C’s cottage, I tell him, “Claire saw a little apartment she wants to buy in The Spires, off High Leys.” There are speckles of bumblebee yellow on his perspiring forehead in the morning sun.
“Will you move in with her?” he asks, neutrally.
“Ha! Not invited! She wants to be on her own,” I say.
He nods.
“And as the sale of Inchicore hasn’t left me with much after this investment, it doesn’t look like I will be getting on the property ladder any time soon,” I say laughing.
“I’ve a very big house, Courtney. Accommodation won’t ever be an issue for you, even when you do come here full-time and leave Lar’s business. There is always a room at mine.”
We let that information sink in. Despite everything we’ve said about no strings, not being tied down, there’s a moment between us that lingers.
“Why does Superman show off his pants?” he calls down to me with a tone of extreme wonder. Extreme deliberation. After the conversation we have just had, I can’t help but burst out laughing at him. A wonderful aroma of sizzling-hot garlic emerges from my kitchen and I can’t help but feel that, as random as this particular question is, it is the question I have been waiting for all my life.
This is the moment.
This is the moment I finally know exactly who I am and exactly what I want. Granny Alice is all around me, I feel that for sure. Tony and I both know that life right now is perfect for us, and who knows? Maybe that perfect will last for ever. Maybe it won’t. But we both know it’s exactly what we want right now. Tony Becker knows the importance of me being me. I inhale deeply and give a little nod to the deep-blue sky. To everyone who is smiling down on me. Part two of Courtney Downey’s life starts right here, right now. And when Tony turns his attention back to the job at hand, I do my happy dance.
Acknowledgements
A huge thank you to all the following without whom I couldn’t write a shopping list let alone a book!
Thank you to every one of you who has purchased The Importance Of Being Me. I truly appreciate every message I receive from readers and I am still pinching myself that you read my books!
For my husband Kevin and my daughters Grace and Maggie, my true inspirations. I love you all so much.
My Rock Star dad, AKA Robbie Box, keep on rocking! My best pal and No. 1 ally, my Mam, Noeleen Grace. I love you both. For Samantha (you got the dedication!) and Keith my other Rock Star bro: In Come A Table has to be the title of your new album btw, you talented brother, you! Niall, Caroline, Ava and Jay and our next generation: Mia, Zoe, Cillian, Olivia, Conor and all my in-laws and extended family!
My other job-making stuff with the lads at Park Pictures, John White, Erik Clancy and that fella Kevin Cassidy, again.
Thanks to Elaine Crowley and all the girls I have the pleasure of chatting with on The Elaine Show.
For Emma Hannigan, who inspires me every single day and got me started on this book when I was struggling big-time for inspiration! Thanks Emma! All my fellow writer friends and supporters: Claudia Carroll, Susan Loughnane, Ciara Geraghty, Liz Nugent, Ann O’Loughlin, Carmel Harrington, Cathy Kelly, Margaret Scott, Caroline Finnerty, Claire Allen, Sinead Moriarty, Shirley Benton, Hazel Gaynor, Melissa Hill, Rick O’Shea all at the Rick O’Shea Book Club – a very special thanks to Margaret Bonass Madden for all her support.
Special thanks to Karyn Millar, my amazing editor, who saved me on this edit – thanks so much Karyn for all your hard work! I will never see Cornwall again without thinking of you!
All the fantastic team at Black & White Publishing: Campbell, Ali, Daiden, Thomas, Janne, Chris and Karyn.
Thank to these peeps: Lisa Carey, Marina Rafter, Sarah Flood, Amy Joyce Hastings, Leontia Brophy, Roisin Kearney, Graham Cantwell, Fiona Looney, Barbara Scully, Sonia Harris, Alison Canavan, Maia Dunphy, Eimear Ennis Graham, Marie, David, Paul & Nicola, Kathleen Fogg, Michael, Dominic, Kerry, Michelle and JJ, Denise McCormack, Elaine Hearty, Sorcha Furlong, Claire Moran, Maeve Callan, Steve and Gwen, Sinead Dalton, Tara Durkin, Gail Brady, Michael & Marcelo, Melanie Finn, Suzanne Kane, Angela and Jimmy, Neil, Jenny and welcome Holly Bedford!
For my Margaret Kilroy – because you are with me always.
In loving memory of Barry Grace and Linda Gallagher – gone too soon, forever in my thoughts.
A Letter from the Author
The Importance Of Being Me is a story I’ve wanted to write for a while. As a mammy to two wonderful, amazing, adored daughters I find myself drawn to writing about mothers and examining who we are as women. mother/: A woman in relation to her child or children.
By the very definition of the word Mother we are still ‘women’ first. However, I find more often than not we don’t allow ourselves this luxury. Personally speaking, I’m trying to hang on to some of the old me. Not in a selfish way I don’t believe, but in a sort of ‘life pension’ way. Something that as my girls are growing and developing, I will still be growing and developing with them.
After The Week I Ruined My Life I got so many messages from women who had never considered their own importance after they had children. It’s a debate I want to keep open in my work, keep discussing in my themes. How to keep ‘Me’ in amongst being a mam
my but more importantly I want my daughters to keep themselves when they become mothers. I encourage them every day to get a great education and stand on their own two feet. Words I hear thrown around a lot about mothers are, “you can’t do it all” or “how can women be everything?” or “something suffers” – no it doesn’t because we can do it all and do it brilliantly. Because we want to be mothers and employers, or employees. I took the guilt out of being a working mother a long time ago, I love my job, I love my kids and I made that choice to do it all. To be a great mother I truly believe you need to lead a happy life and if that means putting your needs on top of that ‘To-Do’ list too, then do it!
If you do enjoy this story it would be so amazing if you could write a review on the site of your choice, Amazon, Goodreads, as we all know it can really help a novel to succeed.
I absolutely love hearing from you all, you can contact me via my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts or email me: [email protected] @CGraceCassidy on Twitter, @c_grace_cassidy on Instagram, @AuthorCarolineGraceCassidy on Facebook. For all of the latest news on my new books and projects, please sign up to my mailing list. Thank you,
All my love, Caroline x
The Importance of Being Me Page 24