Friends Like Us

by Siân O'Gorman

  ‘I’m just trying to get everything ready for the weekend. Getting your stuff together? You’re staying with Granny and Granddad. While we’re in Rome. Okay? And Rachel?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you want to meet Eilis… you haven’t seen her since you were tiny.’

  There was no answer.

  Steph went back into the kitchen, smiling in an embarrassed way at Eilis. ‘Teenagers!’

  And then there was a sound of feet on the stairs and then into the room came Rachel.

  ‘Oh darling, there you are.’ Steph was beaming now, genuine delight and pride. ‘This is Eilis… you have heard me talk about her so many times. She lives in Dalkey now. Again. She grew up in the village. I was up on the hill.’

  Rachel shook hands. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said.

  ‘So you’re in Fifth Year now,’ said Eilis.

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘And how’s it going?’

  ‘Fine, lots of work. But you know…’ Rachel smiled at Eilis and Steph saw that the sweet girl was still there, just well hidden.

  ‘What’s for dinner?’ Rachel said, turning to her mother.

  ‘Pasta!’ Steph made it sound like it was something new and exciting.

  Rachel groaned. ‘Not again. We’re not Italians!’

  ‘I know that,’ said Steph, rolling her eyes at Eilis, who was smiling at the two of them. ‘I thought you liked it.’ She turned to Eilis. ‘Who doesn’t like pasta?’

  ‘Me,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ll have toast or something later.’ And she headed out of the kitchen.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Rachel,’ called Eilis.

  ‘You too,’ said Rachel.

  ‘It’s just that…’ Steph began. Too late. Rachel had disappeared upstairs and slammed the door and Steph was left standing there uselessly. For a brief beautiful moment, she remembered the little girl who used to hold her hand and would leave love notes on her pillow. It was so clear, so real and then like a bubble it began to float away.

  ‘So!’ said Steph, when it was just the two of them again. ‘Family life!’

  ‘Yeah, it’s all go, isn’t it?’

  ‘And we’ve got Rome this weekend,’ said Steph, smiling that false smile. ‘So that’s going to be fun.’

  ‘Yes,’ Eilis said. ‘I forgot about that. Remember you spent that summer in Rome, didn’t you? And I was so jealous because I had to work in that hospital in Cork. I was almost dead by the end, but you came back glowing with life and calling everyone ‘bella’ and saying ‘ciao’ all the time!’

  Steph laughed. ‘I can only apologize for my pretentious insensitivity. Oh, but we had such a ball. It was myself and Pippa and Eileen. No money, surviving on pizza.’

  ‘But I thought you weren’t Italian?’ They laughed again.

  ‘I keep trying to be, don’t I?’ said Steph. ‘When will I ever learn?’

  They chatted for ages about the old days, about the new days, about Eilis’ job, about Steph’s mam and dad and then, finally, Eilis stood up to go. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Making that pasta.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll try to be Spanish. Paella or something.’

  ‘But you like Italy, don’t you?’

  ‘Always have done.’

  ‘So carry on being Italian. Don’t change. And come and see me in Uncosy Cottage next time. Text me when you are back from Rome. Please?’ She hugged her goodbye. ‘Take care, won’t you. Enjoy Rome.’

  ‘I will!’ said Steph smiling. ‘Thanks for coming round.’

  ‘Look after yourself, won’t you,’ Eilis said again.

  ‘Don’t worry about me. Ciao!’ They laughed again, but when she finally closed the door on Eilis, Steph thought she was going to cry.

  Music was coming from Rachel’s room. Once it was very clear she and Rick were not going to be happy together, Rachel had been Steph’s only chance – for love… joy… purpose. And so it was into Rachel that she poured all the tiny tendernesses of a mother’s passion; the singing and giggling together, the incessant chatting about nothing, the playing. She moved her hand, trying to remember what Rachel’s little fingers felt. There was nothing there. Now, she was mother to a sixteen-year-old who had perfected the art of the scowl and the door slam and seemed so angry at her. Steph had no idea how to get it all back.

  I want to matter, she thought. I want to matter. I want to mean something to someone.

  A whole life stretched ahead of her. How was she going to fill it all? There were years of it to go. And Rome to deal with.

  And pasta to boil.

  16

  Melissa

  Jimbo was dunking his custard cream. He was Melissa’s desk-mate at the Standard, in the features department.

  He threw over the packet of biscuits. ‘Lunch?’

  ‘Normal people eat sandwiches,’ she said, putting down her phone, which she had looked at for the millionth time. She hadn’t heard from Cormac for days now, since the ice cream on the pier in Dun Laoghaire. What was going on? Had he tired of her too, like Alistair, like all the others? Not Cormac as well. No, he couldn’t, because he was Cormac and Cormac didn’t do things like that. You could rely on Cormac and that was the whole point of Cormac and her, wasn’t it? It was something steady, something she could depend on. Take the passion out and you had the perfect relationship.

  ‘Aye,’ said Jimbo, ‘but no one ever said I was normal.’

  ‘Nor am I,’ she said, taking one. ‘Thank you! I didn’t know they still made these.’

  ‘You know, Melissa…’

  ‘What’s that, Jimbo? You’re looking serious. Should I be scared?’

  ‘Aye, you should. Because I don’t say this very often…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘And I shouldn’t say it. As a member of the League of Men, a not-always-proud member of that ancient and august club… I shouldn’t say what I’m about to say…’

  ‘What? Spit it out?’

  ‘That some men are wankers.’ He looked at her.

  Melissa laughed. ‘Are you including yourself in that?’

  ‘Maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s just that they are. Wankers. Some of them.’

  ‘I knew that, but thanks anyway.’ God, was she so transparent that Jimbo knew what was going on? That she had been dumped again and had fallen in love with her best friend, despite years and years of protesting she felt nothing, she now realized that she felt something very deep indeed. But was it rebound, that’s what she was trying to wrestle with. Feeling vulnerable? Fall in love with your male best friend!

  Or had she been fooling herself all these years that the one thing, the best thing, was right under her very nose. She felt scared. This was not what she planned, they were meant to be happy as friends for ever and ever. Not this.

  ‘I’ll take it on board,’ she said, smiling smoothly. ‘Thanks Jimbo.’

  ‘You’re welcome. I like being earth-shattering.’

  ‘You should give a Ted Talk. It’d go viral.’

  ‘I should, aye.’ He dipped his biscuit and sucked noisily on it while looking pensively, perhaps dreaming of auditoria, ovations, fame. Maybe a self-help book? ‘Avoiding wankers and other horrors. That’s the title.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  They heard a raised voice and rolled their eyes at each other.

  ‘Talking of which…’ said Jimbo.

  Liam Connelly was shouting, something he enjoyed immensely. As features editor of the Irish Standard, he was never silent for long and relished the sound of his own voice, liberally articulating freely and loudly his thoughts, feelings, itches and twitches. He loved a good shout and his voice carried easily from the partition walls of his corner office, echoing down the corridors of the Standard.

  At his first staff meeting, six months ago, he announced that there were going to be changes. Unpopular ones, he added darkly and ominously. Lost readers would have to be unscattered, scooped up, won back, and he had set to the task with vim, verve and v
igour, which mainly consisted, as far as Melissa could see, of meting out a series of bollockings.

  She noticed Jimbo was looking at her.

  ‘Yes?’ she said.

  ‘Weren’t you off to Paris?’ he said. ‘You never divulged the gory details.’

  ‘That? That was ages ago now.’ Don’t remind me, she thought. She hadn’t heard from Alistair since that humiliating day he dumped her. It wasn’t Alistair’s fault, though. It was hers. She had been too needy and who would want that? She thought instead of Cormac, wondering what he was doing. He was being distant again. She glanced at her phone to see if he had texted.

  ‘And was it, is it… um…’ he searched for the right word. ‘Fun?’

  ‘Paris?’

  ‘Aye. Paris. City of romance, the beret, the boulevard and the baguette. Fancy-pants central. Am I right?’ He drank some of his tea.

  ‘You’ve obviously never been.’ She looked at him curiously. ‘You’re not thinking of going, are you?’

  ‘Never,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Sounds too insipid for me, too flowery. I don’t think my stomach could take it. All that smoochy stuff.’ He took another biscuit. ‘Give me Berlin. Or Madrid. Stockholm. Proper cities, so they are. Not soppy, with moony honeymooners and torrents of tourists, too afraid to lose the rest of the group just in case they accidentally have an adventure.’

  Melissa realized that this was his way of trying to be nice to her, making conversation, he’d obviously noticed she wasn’t herself. Before Paris she had been quite giddy, almost excited and now she was quieter. But he had picked up on something, that much was obvious. Was she that transparent? Did she wear her feelings on her shirt like a badge for everyone to see? She and Jimbo didn’t do much sharing of their lives away from the office and normally spent their time when not typing away, engaged in mindless banter. It certainly helped the time pass. And now she felt as though they were moving from banter to something else. She quickly brought the conversation back to the light and the frivolous.

  ‘I can just imagine you in Paris,’ she said. ‘Reading Sartre in a cafe… trying to order an Ulster Fry in a Belfast accent.’

  ‘A croissant just isn’t breakfast.’ He dunked his biscuit into his tea.

  ‘And nor is a custard cream,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to stop substituting biscuits for meals.’

  He shrugged. ‘You’d be surprised. So… good was it?’

  ‘Paris? Of course. It’s Paris. It’s never not amazing!’ She beamed at him convincingly. ‘It’s bad manners not to drink red wine in copious quantities in Paris, apparently,’ she said. ‘So, not to cause a diplomatic incident, I imbibed a great deal. I told you, you would like it.’

  Jimbo’s eyebrows rose approvingly. ‘Aye. That sounds right up my rue.’

  ‘Jimbo!’ It was Liam, shouting across the office.

  ‘I am to be today’s bollockee, it would seem,’ he said.

  ‘Good luck!’ said Melissa, giving him a thumbs up.

  He returned twenty minutes later.

  ‘Cock. He’s a cock,’ he said, returning. ‘A tool of the highest order, so he is.’

  Melissa laughed. ‘What was the problem?’

  ‘My story…’ Jimbo sat himself down and pulled his chair up to hers. ‘You know the interview with Mary Oliver – the one whose husband…’

  Melissa nodded. ‘The vest and pants man.’ She was referring to a politician who was once caught in just his underwear, dazed and confused, in the rose garden of a posh golfing hotel.

  ‘Exactly. Anyway, well, she’s gone to the Express. She rang me last night – all upset – but she said that they turned up on her doorstep and she did the story – she didn’t realize the fucking meaning of the word “exclusive”. So she told the Express about dubious pleasures of life with Mr Undies and how she is now happier and in her prime et cetera-et cetera-blah-blah-blah-cliché-cliché.’

  He leaned back on his chair and took the last custard cream. ‘So, the story’s gone – through no fault of mine by the fucking way – but Mr Cock-man over there thinks it is.’ He jerked his head in the direction of Liam’s office.

  Melissa tried deflection. ‘Just forget it…’

  ‘I don’t know why I bother. All this saving-the-world, Pulitzer-winning journalism is exhausting.’ Jimbo was warming to his theme of career annihilation. ‘I’m done. I’m going to give Liam what he wants. Banality.’

  Melissa was used to Jimbo’s rants. They were often at his own expense and her job was to soothe and bolster when needed but her phone beeped and she dived for it. Cormac! At last! ‘Sorry Jimbo… been waiting for this,’ she said, as though it was an important work missive.

  Cinema?

  They always went to see a film every week but they hadn’t for at least a month.

  The new Bond was out. ‘Yesh pleash,’ she texted back.

  Text back: ‘Sean Connery is long gone.’

  There’s a new Bond? When did all this happen?

  While you were shagging that idiot in Paris. Probably.

  Devashtated.

  Life and its general crapness was put in its place by Cormac. Nothing seemed too bad when he was around. He even got her jokes. Weak, admittedly, though they were.

  17

  Steph

  She looked out of the tiny window of the aeroplane which was circling over Ciampino. I shouldn’t have come, she thought. A Rome rugby weekend. It was some kind of evil oxymoron. They’d caught the six a.m. flight from Dublin and the whole plane was quiet, everyone trying to work out what madness had caused them to book a flight which meant they had to be at the airport at 4.30 a.m.

  But Steph was thinking of Rachel. The previous evening, she had brought her up to stay with her parents and she’d watched how different Rachel was with them, just the way she used to be with Steph.

  Nuala scootched up on the sofa for Rachel to sit down. Most unusually, Nuala was wearing a pair of tracksuit bottoms, far from her usual attire. ‘I’m far more comfortable like this, Stephanie,’ she explained. ‘I should have bought a pair of these years ago.’ Her mother looked tired, but Nuala brushed aside all concern. ‘Just been overdoing the walking, haven’t I Joe?’ she said. ‘Now, Rachel, love, are you all set? Have you got all your bits and pieces?’

  Joe had got a classic comedy, Tootsie, out from the library and had bought popping corn for the occasion. ‘It’s either Tootsie,’ said Joe. ‘Or…’ he peered at the box set. ‘Or Borgen. It’s meant to be very good. It’s Norwegian, I think. What do you think, Rachel? I met Paul Stafford in the library and he said it was “must-see TV”, which sounds like a recommendation. And, after all, we are now Europeans.’

  ‘Grandad, we have been for some time…’ said Rachel, smiling at him.

  ‘And, I never miss the Eurovision,’ he said.

  ‘But that’s because,’ said Rachel laughing, ‘you are always convinced Ireland will win.’

  ‘And why wouldn’t we? Haven’t we won it loads of times before? I have no idea why we are still not winning. They should just ask Johnny Logan to enter. We’d walk it.’

  ‘By the way,’ said Rachel, pretending to lecture him, ‘Borgen is Danish.’

  ‘Isn’t that what I said? Lovely bacon too. So are we on? Tootsie or Borgen?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Rachel, turning to Steph. ‘What do you think, Mum?’

  What was this? Was she actually asking Steph her opinion? Surely some mistake.

  ‘Well,’ she said, giving the matter some serious thought. ‘Tootsie is very funny… you do have the whole weekend – two nights.’

  ‘Okay…’ Rachel was actually thinking about what Steph had said. This was nothing short of a miracle. ‘What about Borgen now… and then Tootsie later to recover?

  ‘Well,’ said Nuala. ‘I’m on… as long as you explain things to me when it gets complicated. Is that a deal, Rachel?’

  Rachel put up her hand for a high five which Nuala met like a professional. Steph watched as her daug
hter pulled some of Nuala’s rug around her. The two of them looked happy, snuggled together, she wished she was under that rug with them.

  ‘It’s like Downton Abbey in this house,’ Joe said, pushing the footstool under both Rachel and Nuala’s legs. ‘Are Madams ready for their popcorn and chocolates?’

  ‘Oh, I think so, what do you think, Rachel?’ said Nuala.

  ‘Yes, Granddad, we’re ready!’ Nuala and Rachel giggled together and for a moment Steph lingered, not wanting to leave. She really wanted to say that she would miss them but it seemed unnecessarily dramatic.

  ‘Take care, please?’ She hugged her mother. ‘Don’t get up.’ Nuala did look very tired and drawn. ‘See you Sunday afternoon?’

  ‘You take care. And don’t be taking any nonsense from anyone.’ Steph knew exactly what she meant. Nuala had long guessed that all was not right with Steph and Rick.

  Rachel didn’t stand up to hug Steph, so Steph leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘Bye sweetheart, I love you,’ said Steph.

  ‘Bye Mum,’ she said. Teenagers don’t say that they love their mums, so don’t expect it, Steph told herself. The most important thing is that Rachel is happy. She looked back to see Rachel offering Nuala a Minstrel.

  And now she was in Rome, sitting beside her husband, and an arm-length from the woman he was sleeping with, but her heart was back in Dublin. They were taxi-ing to the terminal. She looked out of the small round window of the plane. Steph had no idea why she was there, what made her so weak that she clung pathetically, to this fake life, her fake husband, her fake marriage. We are all lying to ourselves, Steph thought, that it is okay to have a disappointing life as long as no one knows about it. And Steph was the biggest phoney of all. From the outside, her life seemed lovely but in reality she was being humiliated, laughed at by her husband and her friend. What was worse, Steph was letting them do it. And here she was in Rome, sucking it up.

  When you are young, thought Steph, it’s so easy to change your life. You can suddenly move flat, meet a new group of friends, you can decide on a radical lifestyle change and become a vegan or be a Goth for a few weeks. You make choices and decisions all the time, you can change your mind as quickly as you made it up. It’s all so easy. Things go wrong and you just do something else but with age, it’s not so easy to change direction. You get stuck. Which was how Steph felt right now.