Friends Like Us

by Siân O'Gorman

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. That does sound nice…’ said Eilis. ‘That’ll be lovely. Remember that summer in Rome, swanning about.’

  ‘That was for the love of art,’ said Steph laughing. ‘And this is a love of rugby.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Melissa, pretending to be shocked. ‘I didn’t realize you had turned into one of those.’

  ‘I’m not really,’ said Steph, conspiratorially. ‘I just have to pretend.’

  ‘Marital harmony,’ said Melissa. ‘You probably have to pretend all sorts of things.’ She laughed but she caught Steph’s eye and saw again that look of something she couldn’t quite figure out.

  They have no idea how much I am dreading it, thought Steph. A weekend with your husband who doesn’t speak to you, and a group of people you either don’t know or don’t like, and one of the woman you suspect you husband is sleeping with. Now, that’s a weekend.

  5

  Steph

  Oh, the cafe of Brown Thomas was nice at ten o’clock in the morning, nice and quiet, it was practically a spiritual experience. It was definitely Dublin’s smartest and most expensive shop, a place to dream of a better and nicer life.

  Steph was sipping a cup of tea and spreading butter and jam onto her croissant. Pity, she thought, that you couldn’t spend all your life eating butter and pastries, Irish Times propped against the pot, a respite from reality. I could live here, she mused. Like that man in that film who lived in an airport. Hide among the coats at closing time. Spritz perfume in the empty make-up hall, stroke the scarves and handle the shoes. Not a bad life… not a bad life at all.

  Years ago, when Steph and Melissa house-shared on Baggot Street, life was full of possibilities. They could have been anything. Life stretched out endlessly, gloriously, deliciously. And then the options dried up. Why does no one warn you, tell you that there is a sell-by date on freedom? That life gets smaller as you get older?

  At the time, marrying Rick hadn’t seemed a life-depleting decision. She was pregnant, they were in love, she thought. What else was she going to do? She was twenty-two and felt ancient, as though she knew it all. And leaving that lovely job at the Edith Long Gallery didn’t seem like such a big thing. She remembers Mrs Long’s shock when she told her.

  ‘Earn your own money, my darling.’ Mrs Long had shaken her head. ‘Don’t rely on a man. Don’t ever rely on a man.’ She blew out her cigarette smoke.

  Steph had laughed, actually laughed. ‘It’ll be grand,’ she said, airily and dismissively. ‘I might set up my own gallery one day. Or move to Paris. I just don’t know.’

  Steph still cringed at how naive she was… how wildly optimistic… how incredibly stupid.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Long, after a pause. ‘Stay in touch with me and… Don’t lose yourself. You never know…’

  To all those with absolutely no idea whatsoever, Steph’s life was lovely. There was the over-paid lawyer husband. Nice house. Life as a stay-at-home mother. What else could a woman ask for?

  But pots of money do not equal happiness. No one actually believes that until they find themselves with spare money but not the things they actually want - love, companionship, respect - all of which are free. When your husband doesn’t actually speak to you, when you sleep in the same bed as someone and you never touch, when you clean someone’s clothes and stock the fridge and pile up newspapers and pick up socks and buy wine and that person, for whom all those tasks are done, can’t be bothered to say thank you or ask how you actually are, when he is too busy with other women, when he is quick to anger and when the threat of his bulk, his superior muscle strength is always there, then the allure of the nice house etc wears pretty thin, pretty quickly.

  If only she would go all crazy and pour away his vintage wine and put prawns in his briefcase or whatever, or CHUCK HIM OUT, she might feel better. But she hadn’t so far and it didn’t look as though she might anytime soon. So she was a pathetic weakling and this fact only made her feel worse. And what kind of role model was she to Rachel? A crap one, that’s what.

  She spread some more butter on her croissant and sunk her teeth into it.

  ‘Steph!’ A voice across the cafe. ‘Steph!’

  Oh Jesus. Miriam.

  Frustratingly, she was looking particularly good this morning. Dressed, as usual, all in black, skinny jeans and towering boot things, blonde hair piled high and falling down and sexy flicky make-up. Not bad for a Wednesday morning. Dishevelled on Miriam looked sexy, but on Steph, it would have looked like crazy cat-lady. Miriam was sexier than Steph, she knew that. And in Rick’s eyes, she was a fun person, loved a good flirt and a bottle of two of wine. She wasn’t boring like Steph was. She could see the attraction. They deserved each other, but it didn’t make the deception any easier to take.

  She self-consciously pulled at her jacket, feeling immediately frumpy. Years ago, she used to wear ancient, battered leather jackets. Now, she was clothed in the vestments of one whose mojo has long since absconded. She had her hair done every six weeks, but she just didn’t feel like herself. She didn’t feel right… she was uncomfortable in her skin. She just wasn’t her. At least those wafty kaftans she used to wear felt right. But Rick used to laugh at them, and there was that sense that he was slightly embarrassed by that bohemian side to her, and so she stopped wearing them and tried to be the good lawyer’s wife.

  Miriam weaved her way through the tables, armed with bags and Steph hid any murderous desires with a warm smile, and as they kissed hello, a waft of Miriam’s perfume hit her nose, something deep and musky.

  ‘Coffee… I so need one,’ said Miriam. ‘I am run off my feet. It is exhausting. Someone should ban communions. Sorcha’s. Two weeks. You are coming, aren’t you? Anyway, they are positively the worst thing ever. Who do I need to talk to? The Pope? Haw haw!’ Miriam bared her gleaming teeth. ‘No, but seriously,’ she lowered her voice, ‘he has no idea… the Pope, I mean… no fecking idea of the toll they take. I’ve had to cancel Body Pump with Paddy for the second time this week. And I said to the girls at the tennis club that I was sorry they would have to play the doubles match without me. I have. Too. Much. To. Do.’

  Steph was trying to keep up with this onslaught but she was mostly just watching Miriam’s mouth move, the lipstick and lip liner, the obligatory bleached teeth. She wished she was talking to Eilis or Melissa, a conversation of connection.

  ‘So they were like so disappointed,’ continued Miriam. ‘I said, listen girls, you are just gonna have to do it without me and they all said they didn’t know if they could.’ She lifted a hand to summon the waitress. ‘Okay,’ continued Miriam, ‘so they didn’t win the semis, but I can’t feel bad about that, can I? I am not God, I am not omnivorous. I can’t be everywhere.’

  Omniscient, corrected Steph in her head.

  ‘So,’ Miriam shrugged, ‘we go down a point in the league. But I’m sorry, all right?’ She laughed and fiddled with her up-down-do.

  ‘Coffee!’ Miriam called to the waitress. ‘Skinny latte. Soya. Thanks, Petrina. You are an absolute angel.’ She smiled winningly. ‘Anyway, so this is my second…

  Steph was trying to keep up. ‘Second what?’ Coffee? Coming? Affair with a married man?

  ‘Second communion… and, I tell you, they have me run ragged. The dress, the shoes… and do you know, I cannot get the make-up artist to the house on Saturday. Alberto’s fully booked. I am going to have to do it myself. And he’s so good at the spray tan with that tent he has.’

  ‘What?’ Steph was utterly confused. ‘Is Sorcha going to wear make-up and get a tan?’ Sorcha was Miriam’s youngest and only nine.

  ‘Oh, she’s fine… she’s been sorted for months. I’m talking about my dress and my shoes. And Alberto always does my hair and make-up. I think Lucinda Coleman has him booked. Bitch. Haw haw. So, anyway,’ she looked down at Steph’s plate. ‘You’re having a coffee all on your ownsome?’

  Oh Jesus. Make her go away. How could one woman do this to another, thought Steph.
Was the sex that good? Not with Rick it couldn’t be. She looked away and thought about just getting up and leaving Miriam mid-sentence. She may be sexy but she was exceptionally boring.

  ‘And a croissant I see!’ continued Miriam. ‘Naughty-naughty!’

  ‘Just a quiet moment, you know,’ said Steph. Until you and your tedious stories interrupted me, she said internally. And by the way, Miriam, she wanted to say, your cleavage is too low. You look ridiculous. And stop sleeping with my husband, you woman of no morals. Or brain.

  ‘You are brave!’ said Miriam. ‘And butter? Throwing caution out the window?’

  It’s to the bloody wind, you fool! Steph shouted at her silently. ‘Kind of.’ Steph tried to smile now, knowing there was no way she could finish this French calorie-bomb with any enjoyment at all now. ‘Would you like one?’ she asked. ‘To go with your… soya latte… thing?’

  Miriam recoiled. She might as well have suggested eating a tarantula. ‘It looks delicious but I just can’t do carbs. I so wish I could, but my body won’t allow it. You’re lucky that you don’t worry about keeping in shape. It’s such a bore. But for someone like me, I’ve got to stay in the game. I mean, neither of us are getting any younger. But some of us are aging better than others.’

  The croissant sat on the table between them as a symbol of all that was wrong in Steph’s life. Fuck this, she thought. I’m going to eat that croissant, even if it is just a pathetic misguided attempt to show how different I am to this vain, passive-aggressive, boring, old cow. She defiantly began to spread on the Kerrygold in an extra thick mountainous mound.

  ‘You’ve such a great appetite on you,’ said Miriam. ‘I wish I could eat like that. I really have to mind myself. I’m not like you…’ She gazed sweetly at Steph who stared back maniacally while pushing some more croissant into her mouth. ‘You eat what you want, never thinking of the consequences. You see I’m off all carbs. I’m alkaline these days. And, you know, I’m feeling a-may-zing. So much energy! You know, I just hop out of bed in the morning, ready for action. The girls at the club can’t believe me. After a match, I’m always bouncing around wanting another game. Duracell, they call me. Isn’t that funny?’

  ‘Very,’ said Steph, wondering how long Miriam and Rick had been sleeping together. Months? Could even be years. ‘What’s the opposite of Alkaline?’

  ‘Um…’ Miriam tried to think.

  ‘Well, I’m on that diet,’ said Steph, mouth full of croissant. ‘Whatever it’s called. The Acid diet?’

  ‘I… er…’ Miriam couldn’t quite understand her through the croissant. ‘I don’t think that sounds good for you…’

  The waitress came over and unsmilingly placed the coffee down beside her.

  ‘Thanks, Petrina. You’re amazing,’ said Miriam before taking a slurp, getting lipstick all over the rim of the cup.

  Steph desperately looked around for escape.

  ‘So, anyway, that’s why I’m here,’ carried on Miriam, blithely. ‘I’m sure you were wondering. I have been looking and looking and looking for the last two months for something to wear. Not a big ask, you would think. Wrong! A fucking big ask. Capital BIG. The biggest. So, today I get a phone-call from Lisa in Designer – talk about leaving it a bit late, Lisa, I said. Why couldn’t you have saved me from a near fucking heart attack by calling last fucking week? But she said soooo sorry. They’ve only just come in. From Milan. She says that Donatella, the Donatella FYI, had only just managed to find the dress. So I’m like… okay. I’ll have a look. I pretended to be all cool and everything but I am so excited. I mean, it’s only Versace, isn’t it. Haw haw! I need more of this.’ She drank more coffee. ‘So here I am. Little old me. And it’s fab-u-lous. Worth waiting for. Can’t wait to show you!’

  Steph realised that if she endured one more nanosecond of this assault on her senses then she might combust. I’ve put up with her for years, she thought. And I haven’t said anything. I’ve allowed us to be friends and I’ve allowed this situation to happen. No self-respecting woman would have put up with this. Why have I? Even if she isn’t shagging my husband then I must get away from her for the sake of my sanity.

  ‘By the way, you are coming, aren’t you? You didn’t respond to the RSVP… I know how busy you are with… with… you know… whatever. Anyway, it’s at two p.m. But don’t bother coming to the church bit – bore-issimo! We’ll just see you at the house for the real event. Haw haw haw.’ Miriam’s epiglottis dangled like a condemned man (or woman).

  ‘Yes, yes, sounds lovely,’ said Steph, hating herself even more. And hating herself for suffering the witterings of the most life-sapping woman on earth. Jesus Christ alive. What had happened to Steph Sheridan, arts history graduate, confident, happy, surrounded by proper friends, people who liked her and weren’t shagging her husband? And who was this joke in her place – Steph Fitzgerald cuckolded wife, fool of the century and general laughing stock?

  Steph zoned out watching Miriam’s mouth move frantically. She would have thought, she mused, that Rick would have better taste. Obviously not. She wondered about Angeline, and what Miriam would say if she knew about her. Did she think they were exclusive? Or was it possible to be exclusive if you were having an affair? A moral conundrum for the modern era.

  ‘So,’ Miriam was saying, ‘Totally Cheffilly are doing the food – they did Hugh’s fortieth. Remember? God, that pavlova was to die for. No gluten, you get me? Now, is pavlova alkaline?’

  Steph shrugged. ‘Not the foggiest,’ she said, caring not one jot what the pavlova was (except delicious, of course).

  ‘Anyway, I’ll just have the teensiest crumb of it.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So, let me tell you this, the nude Jimmy Choo just weren’t right.’ Miriam was on to shoes now. I used to love art and culture. I once wrote essays on Giotto and Giacometti and Gaugin, and now I was listening to drivel about diets and shoes. ‘So Lisa is ordering them from Jimmy himself. Such a sweet man. I met him in London last year. At his workshop. Not exactly Bond Street but full of a-may-zing shoes. My feet are so tiny, he says, like a bird’s, apparently.’

  ‘Bird’s feet? Aren’t they claws? Is that a good thing?’ She high-fived herself in her head. Small victories had to be acknowledged.

  ‘Totally, haw-haw, but you know what I mean.’

  I ought to be ashamed of myself, thought Steph. Where’s my pride, where’s my fucking pride.

  Steph watched Miriam quickly re-smear her lips with lipstick, smack them together, and gather her bags. ‘Gotta go, you know,’ said Miriam. ‘Wish I could sit round all day drinking coffee like you but I am just so busy, right? But see you Saturday? And Rachel too. Aoife would die if she didn’t come. And Ricky, too, of course!’

  Ricky?! And she thought she could get away with having an affectionate nickname for my husband. Rick hated being called Ricky. He said once it’s what his (weird and narcissistic) mother used to call him whenever she bothered to be around. Steph wondered if Miriam just used a pet name for him to annoy her, like they had something intimate between them. As though Steph hadn’t a clue just how intimate. And Miriam was the one to bombard her and then walk away, leaving Steph feeling furious that she had allowed to be controlled by her.

  She drifted into the handbag and scarves department and wound a soft and luxurious black cashmere scarf around her neck. Steph looked at herself in the mirror. It was beautiful. Expensive but beautiful. If she really wanted it, she could pay for it, using Ricky’s money. But suddenly she was gripped with something else, she knew she was going to steal it. It was like she was possessed with this need, this desire, this urge. She had promised herself, over and over again, that she would stop this, not do it again, especially after the close-shave with Fintan and the chocolate bloody bunny. But the urge, whatever it was, was more powerful that she. Her whole body was filled with an energy which simultaneously empowered and frightened her, as though she was someone else, someone she wasn’t in control of. She had promised hers
elf she would stop, but each time she realized that it wasn’t so easy.

  She felt along the scarf for the security tag. None. Right, this shouldn’t be too difficult. Leaving the scarf on, she casually checked out other scarves and more bags, fingering and feeling, drifting about dreamily as though she was any other woman on a browse. But, unlike all the other women, she left the shop with the black cashmere still around her neck.

  Heart pounding, alarms screaming inside her head, she stepped into the street. Adrenaline pumping, she felt triumphant… but the feeling was frustratingly fleeting. In an instant, super-stealing powers dissipated and she was left standing on the street, a common criminal and she hated herself for it.

  6

  Cormac

  It was still a building site but one day – imminently, knuckle-bitingly soon – it was to be his and Walter’s very own bakery. This mess of dust and cement would soon be the culmination of all his dreams. His professional dreams, anyway.

  He thought of Melissa, and wished, as he always did, that she was with him. She’d say something to make him laugh and he would feel complete, happy, excited, as he always did when she was around. But he had a date that night with Erica, a set-up, a blind date, and he was feeling nervous and conflicted.

  It was Melissa he wanted to be set up with, eating out with meeting for a drink, cinema-ing, not this Erica. Who, he suspected, would be high-maintenance and probably very scary.

  He loved Melissa. She made him laugh, she fascinated and enthralled him. He loved her brokenness, her vulnerability, her strength. He loved her face and her body and her hands that he had to stop himself from grabbing, holding her and never letting go. Whenever they hugged, hello, goodbye, she felt small and soft and… and so incredibly gorgeous. She dominated his life, his thoughts, and he wanted her to be his and him to be hers. Ever undaunted, he had waited impatiently for her, hoping that one day she would change her mind, and there he would be, her knight in shiny shoes. Much as he tried, his ardour would not, damn it, wane, or dissipate or vaporize but instead had taken root. He might attempt a good prune but, within hours, he was back again, all aflame, like those relighting candles on birthday candles.