Friends Like Us

by Siân O'Gorman

  Melissa walked home, buying a coffee and a muffin on the way. She stopped off in a chemist for some headache tablets and sat on one of the benches along the boardwalk of the canal.

  Why had she allowed such a thing to happen? What was wrong with her? She used to feel amazing, invincible. But now? Now, she was making mistakes left right and centre. Terrible, awful mistakes. And work was now ruined as a result. How could she face Jimbo ever again? She was good at something, all right, she thought, as she downed her coffee, which did little to alleviate the sense of death and decay, she was very good at fucking things up.

  23

  Steph

  Steph went upstairs to Rachel’s room and gently pushed the door… no one there. She looked around at all of Rachel’s things; posters on the wall, her books, and her dressing gown hung on the back of the door, make-up on her desk, boots and shoes in a heap, Pinky the rabbit (old and one-eared) lying pensively on the bed. And, on her bedside table, was what looked like a diary. She didn’t know Rachel was keeping one.

  ‘Rachel Fitzpatrick’ was written in careful teenage hand. She looked at the first page, not meaning to read it… but she couldn’t stop.

  Had a laugh with Aoife, Caz and Siobhan in the afternoon yesterday. Went to Fundaland and met up with Barry and his friends. He let me wear his hat and scarf because it was so freezing. He’s so nice. Came home at four.

  Mum was out and the house was empty. Everything was quiet except when Aoif and I went to my room, we heard a noise. We thought we were being burgled or something. We went onto the landing – Aoif holding my hockey stick in her hand.

  And Dad came out of his bedroom. Trying to look normal and claiming to have had a sleep. It was obvious he was lying because he was smiling and looked weird.

  He gave myself and Aoif some money to get a pizza. Basically, he was trying to get us out of the house.

  So, we did, but we hid behind a car to see if we could solve the mystery.

  No one came out. So, Dad was telling the truth and is just ACTUALLY weird. Or there’s a dead body in there.

  Aoif reckons dead body.

  Jesus. What was going on? Was Rick actually sleeping with Miriam in the house?

  Steph scanned a few pages, found a new entry. She recognised the date – Rick’s birthday. They had had a few people over to dinner.

  Rachel wrote:

  I went downstairs to get some Coke out of the fridge and more crisps. When I passed the downstairs toilet, Miriam came out pulling down her skirt. She tried to pretend everything was normal but then a moment later Dad came out of the toilet too. I just know something was going on. Like they were having it off or something. And then I knew what had happened before, when Dad was being so weird. Miriam must have left by the back door. Dad, the twat, just pretended everything was normal. And then Mrs Head in the Sand herself came out and was all nice as pie. Anyone would think I was an eejit.

  Steph scanned forward a few pages.

  February 7th. Some of the girls know about my dad and Miriam and they’ve started saying things. I told them they were liars and they don’t know anything. And then I got into a fight…

  ‘Interesting reading, mum?’ Rachel was standing at the door of her bedroom, face incandescent.

  Steph nearly fell off the bed.

  ‘Rach! I was just… tidying up and then I just glanced at the book. Your diary, is it? I didn’t read it. I’ve only just come in here.’

  Rachel just stood there, looking at her. Steph gabbled away. ‘I was just trying to find something. My scarf… remember you borrowed it?’

  Rachel raised one of her eyebrows. ‘Really, Mother?’ Her voice was icy. Steph had to give her daughter credit. ‘Is that the best you can do? Why don’t you admit it? You were snooping, weren’t you? You were spying on me. Find out anything?’ She was like a Bond villain.

  ‘Well, actually…’

  ‘You are pathetic, Mum.’ Rachel unleashed her anger. ‘A total and utter weakling, that’s what you are. You have no idea what is going on in this fucking house, so you resort to reading your own daughter’s diary to find out. Other mothers know what’s going on. They know what their kids – and their husbands – are up to. But not you. No, no. You have your fingers in your ears, always trying to get people to like you. But they don’t, you know. Your husband doesn’t like you. Miriam doesn’t like you. They are just laughing at you behind your back. And you are letting them.’

  ‘Rachel…’

  ‘Yes, fucking Miriam. She and Dad are sleeping together, by the way. And everyone knows except you. Aoife knows, I know… the whole bloody street knows, everyone in school knows, and I am a laughing stock. It is so humiliating! You are too busy worrying whether I have eaten a fucking bowl of cereal for breakfast than the fact that your husband is sleeping with your friend. You… you… you moron!’

  ‘I’m sorry Rach. I… um, I did know about it, but I hadn’t quite worked out what to do and I was just buying some time.’

  ‘While they have been fucking each other, Mother, you have been poncing about and being useless. A normal woman would have thrown their husband out, but not you – doormat!’ Rachel had started crying. ‘And now you read my fucking diary. As if I have anything else. I don’t have a fucking family. And now I don’t have any fucking privacy.’

  Steph felt pathetic and weak. I must be such a disappointment to Rachel, she thought. ‘I’m really sorry Rach,’ she said. ‘I thought I was doing the best thing.’

  ‘A proper mother would be strong, you know? Not like you.’ She began to sob now. Steph went over to her. She put her arms around Rachel. ‘I’m so, so sorry, my darling girl. My darling girl.’

  ‘I hate you Mum,’ said Rachel. I really, really hate you.’ But she let Steph smooth her hair and shush in her ear.

  ‘But I really, really love you, though, so maybe it cancels it out,’ said Steph. She sat beside Rachel, waiting for the sobs to calm down. ‘You’re right,’ she said, speaking gently. ‘I have been weak, but these things aren’t easy to sort out. You can’t – you don’t just make decisions and then act on them… there’s a lot to think about. There’s you… the house, everything… We will get through this. I just don’t know what the future looks like. I wish I did. But that’s really scary and I wanted to be sure I was doing the right thing. For you. You love Dad and it’s hard to make a decision to break up the family.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s my dad and everything,’ said Rachel, ‘but I would prefer not to live in this chaos.’

  It was chaos, their home, that’s where she had failed the most, adding to the chaos. Why hadn’t she protected Rachel better? How could she have let her be burdened by all this? Eventually, Rachel stopped crying.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to go through this,’ Steph said, gently, holding her hand. ‘About Dad and… Miriam.’ And Angeline. And all the other lucky girls in Rick’s sight. Ugh. He was truly disgusting.

  ‘Why didn’t you do anything about it?’ Rachel was looking furious again. ‘You could have stopped it. You should have stopped it. You can’t let Miriam do this to you. She’s just a stupid cow. I hate her.’

  ‘Sometimes adults behave badly, do stupid things. You don’t suddenly become wise and all-knowing when you get to eighteen.’

  ‘I hate him too. And I hate you.’

  ‘You know, sweetheart, I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you one bit.’ She looked at Rachel’s lovely face, tear-stained and angry. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so, so sorry. It’s not easy, you know, it’s not easy being grown-up,’ Steph said. ‘I’m doing my best and I know I’ve let you down and I am so, so sorry. Listen, I wish I had all the answers, but there’s no bloody manual for what to do when your husband starts having an affair with the neighbour.’

  Rachel had stopped crying, she was listening. ‘There should be,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, there should be. But unfortunately there isn’t.’

  And then Rachel suddenly stood up. ‘I don’t want to hear any
more,’ she said. ‘You know, Mum, it’s crap being me. Do you realise that? It’s crap being the girl whose father is sleeping with Aoife’s mother. It’s embarrassing having such pathetic parents.’

  And she walked out of the house, slamming the door.

  And finally Steph felt rage at Rick for doing this. For putting Rachel through this, for embarrassing her. He never thought of the consequences, the impact his actions had on others. She needed to get a few things together. Like what? Her passport, her driver’s licence, bank details, all the things that would enable her to leave. She kept them in a box file, in Rick’s study. He didn’t lock it, but he knew she’d never poke around but now she went in to retrieve cheque books and medical cards from the box file. She needed to get them into her possession. She didn’t know how relations were going to go.

  Over by the window of the study, there was a large desk, laptop and a photograph of Rachel as a baby. There was also a picture of Rick and his father, the rather scary Richard Fitzpatrick, on Rick’s graduation day. They were standing side by side, slightly awkwardly, Rick’s strange mother on the other side. She’d always believed that they didn’t think she was quite good enough for Rick. They would have loved Miriam, though. Right up their street. She grabbed the box file and went to leave but under the blotter was an envelope sticking out. Should she open it? Was this in the realm of acceptable snooping? Or was it a divorceable offence. Go ahead, punk. Divorce me.

  It was from the head of chambers.

  …Come to our attention… unprofessional behaviour… allegations of misconduct which contravenes office policy… relationship with colleague… Angeline Barrow’s contract is terminated with immediate effect… you are on a warning. Any transgressions… such behaviour and your employment will cease…

  Good God.

  So he and Angeline had been discovered. And she had been sacked. Surely it should have been Rick who should be sacked. But he had been a given a stay of execution. How utterly humiliating. For everyone.

  And there was Rachel getting into fights because of this. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. No way could this go any further. It had to stop now.

  Rick’s life was a mess and for too long he had dragged her down. She had to start getting back on her feet and getting her and Rachel far, far away.

  24

  Melissa

  When she walked into the office on Monday morning, the first person Melissa spotted was Jimbo. Oh God, she groaned, willing herself or him to dissipate, Star Trek style.

  He was talking to a young woman but something was decidedly different because, in all the years she had known him, Jimbo, normally bored-looking and slightly stoned, was practically animated. Even his beard looked perkier. Who even knew beards could do such a thing? What had Jimbo, a man so afraid of showing his emotions that he covered his face with a ridiculously large beard, so interested?

  ‘Jimbo,’ she said, when she got to her desk, smiling as though everything was fine, pulling off her woolly gloves and unwinding her scarf. Inside she was dying.

  ‘Ah! Murphy,’ he said, perfectly normally as though their last encounter wasn’t of the naked kind. ‘Meet our latest inmate, ahem, I mean fresh-faced recruit.’ The young woman laughed. Melissa tried to bat away images of Jimbo in the altogether, his white chest and sticky-out ribs, the inadequate loin cloth of a towel.

  Jimbo continued. ‘She arrives this morning full of hope and optimism; by the afternoon, her dreams will be thwarted, ideals twisted, desired mutilated and thrown back at her feet. Her wish to help others and to fight the evil forces of capitalism pushed screaming down the toilet bowl of life. In short, innocence transformed into foul, fetid faeces of disappointment and the slow, dawning realization that we are powerless, that we journalists can do nothing except what our small-brained and tiny-testicled editors tell us to do, who in turn are governed by managers who march to one tune only, that of the Great God, Commerce.’

  Good old Jimbo. He was his usual smart-arse self. She almost loved him for it.

  ‘Ignore this idiot and his melange of metaphor,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the effort, Jimbo. And so early in the morning. Congratulations. Your oration was wasted on me as I was too busy wondering how a person can carry so much hair on their chin. It’s amazing you can actually lift your head. Fair play to you on that one. Neck. Of. Steel.’ Melissa turned to the girl. ‘I’m Melissa. Welcome,’ she smiled. ‘Jimbo just hasn’t been able to laugh since he believed Jacob’s changed the recipe for fig rolls.’

  ‘They have! They’re not the same!’ Jimbo said. ‘I’ll get to the bottom of it! I will!’

  The girl was laughing. ‘I’m Louise McArthur, Lulu.’ She grasped Melissa’s hand with both of hers and shook it. ‘It’s an honour to meet you, Ms Murphy…’

  ‘Call me Melissa…’

  ‘Thank you.’ Lulu smiled. ‘Um, Melissa? I must tell you, but I did an entire dissertation on the art of the feature writer. I used your work as my case study, to illustrate the authorial voice, the role of the woman’s voice in newspapers to filter world events, and specifically your distinct ability to create a sense of safety for readers.’

  ‘Jesus. Steady on…’ Jimbo began.

  Lulu continued. ‘What you say about the world, and this is what I surmised, whether you are talking to a celebrity, or politician or writing about health issues for women, people trust you and believe you. Like Oprah, I suggested, or the pope.’

  Melissa didn’t know what to say. ‘The pope, you say… that’s…’

  ‘I mean, you didn’t win the O’Brien Prize five years in a row for nothing…’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Wow!’ exclaimed Lulu.

  ‘Well, one year I shared it with Caitriona Brannigan from the Times… so…’

  ‘Her nemesis,’ explained Jimbo.

  Melissa ignore him. ‘So, technically six.’

  ‘But actually five,’ said Jimbo.

  ‘Six, of course,’ said Lulu, ‘my mistake. Anyway, it’s a real honour to meet you.’

  ‘And it’s very nice to meet you, Lulu. Did you pass? You know, your dissertation?’

  ‘Yes, I received a double first and have just been in the States – at the Columbia School of Journalism. And now I’m… here!’

  Melissa fully expected her to do a twirl.

  ‘I have been reading your work since I was fifteen…’

  ‘That long? I don’t know if I’ve been writing that long…’

  ‘It’s not long, really,’ Lulu assured her. ‘I’m twenty-five.’

  ‘That young?’

  Lulu laughed again and Melissa and Jimbo exchanged eyebrow raises. And then Lulu suddenly stopped and looked deadly serious. ‘The thing is, I want to be you.’

  ‘Me? You want to be me?’

  ‘Yes! You, if you don’t mind. Well not exactly you. You but me, if you see what I mean? Would you mind?’ Lulu held up her phone and smiled at the camera and had tweeted it before Melissa knew what was happening, but she could see that in the photo she was open-mouthed and double-chinned. And those were definitely the remnants of her breakfast on her jumper. And why on earth would this fresh-faced 25-year-old want to be her when she could be anyone?

  ‘Thanks so much! I know we are going to be so close. Mentor!’ Lulu put her hand out for a fist bump. Melissa bumped back, awkwardly. She could see Jimbo was laughing. Behind his beard.

  Lulu was looking at her phone. ‘Right, I’ve got a meeting with Mr Connelly in eight minutes. He’s asked me to bring a few ideas. I have forty-five. Is that enough?’ She looked worried.

  ‘No, I think you have enough. Doesn’t she, Jimbo?’

  ‘Aye, she does that,’ he said, nodding. ‘Definitely enough. I haven’t had an idea since 1986.’

  ‘And that was when you devised a plan to make a mobile out of Hula Hoops so you could eat crisps while you worked.’

  ‘Aye. Must see if that patent has expired…’

  Lulu clearly wasn’t quite sure
if they were joking or not. ‘Excuse me a moment… see you in a while…’ She disappeared.

  Melissa and Jimbo just looked at each other.

  ‘Mentor?’ Melissa looked perplexed. ‘Moi?’

  ‘Mental more like.’

  ‘Are all young people like that these days? Is that normal? I suddenly feel like I need a sit down,’ said Melissa. ‘And my slippers. Maybe a nice watch of afternoon telly, like Countdown. And a mug of Ovaltine.’

  ‘That, my dear,’ said Jimbo, ‘is the new generation. They are like a relentless robot army – shinier, newer, sleeker than us. We’re over. We may as well go home.’

  ‘I feel useless all of a sudden,’ she said.

  ‘Actually I feel the opposite. I need to rig up my Hula Hoop mobile… I had forgotten just how good my ideas used to be…’

  ‘Jimbo?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The sight of Jimbo naked kept interrupting her waking thoughts, like newsflashes. She could only imagine Jimbo suffered the same mortification.

  He looked at her. ‘It’s grand,’ he said. And that was it. They were moving on. ‘Let’s have a custard cream, shall we?’ he said. ‘I can’t work on an empty stomach.’

  Later, things were so normal that they went for a quick drink and a moan in their usual seats in Fallon’s. Melissa was on the sparkling water – she had decided that a clear head was what she needed after what had happened with Jimbo - which made going to the pub an ordeal rather than a pleasure, removing the very point of a pub. She made the best of it by ordering crisps, which slightly enlivened and elevated the occasion.

  They were moaning together – always a shared pleasure – about Liam and the direction towards tabloid populism. But, perhaps, higher circulation. This weekend’s paper was not leading with Melissa’s story but something by a freelancer. A mea culpa of a minor pop star who slept with his make-up artist while his wife gave birth in hospital. He manager had decided that he should say how difficult he had found fame, how stressed he was after the loss of his labradoodle who had been run over by the drummer in the band. It was the usual career-saving pointless exercise that meant little or nothing to anyone except the popstar, the wife and the dog.