Friends Like Us

by Siân O'Gorman

  ‘No, I don’t think you have, Eilis. People don’t just forget how to read,’ he said.

  ‘I know, I was just joking…’

  ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘I’m going out. Have a good evening. And I’ll see you…’

  ‘Whenever.’ It was early to go out, she thought, but he was a big boy, she wasn’t in charge of him.

  ‘Whenever, right!’ he laughed.

  ‘So, where’re you going?’ She wondered when he was going to pack. The flight was at two the next afternoon. She supposed he would still have time.

  ‘Into town, with Michael. A last night before the holiday.’

  ‘That sounds nice.’

  ‘We all need friends. You have yours and I have mine.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ But, she thought, I don’t see mine as much as you see yours.

  ‘So… I’ll be off.’

  ‘Okay…’ She leaned over to give him a kiss but it was awkward as he didn’t realize she was going in for one and he put his arms up and they got into a bit of a tangle. It was like he was pushing her away.

  They laughed. ‘That went well, didn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t know what you were doing.’ Rob was smiling. ‘Next time give me a warning.’

  ‘Will do. I’ll send you a text.’ They laughed again.

  Even though the kiss had gone very wrong, the warmth between them had returned a little bit. Eilis felt better, as though everything was okay again or had the promise to be. And they had Greece to go to… that would sort everything out. Holidays always did.

  ‘Mam,’ she said out loud to the photo in the kitchen, ‘everything’s going to be okay, isn’t it?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘I wish you hadn’t died, Mam,’ Eilis. ‘I wish you were here.’

  The house was empty and quiet. Brigid was nowhere to be heard.

  She had to stop thinking about her mother. She had to get over it. She wanted to live a life without the death of her mother always there.

  ‘How do I say goodbye to you, Mam,’ she spoke out loud again. ‘How do I move on?’

  Just let go… she thought she heard a voice. Just let go.

  ‘But I can’t let go. I don’t want to let go. You’re all I have.’

  Just let go. Let go.

  Rob didn’t come home that night but reappeared at ten o’clock the next morning. She was getting anxious by then and was already wondering what to do when the police rang and said they had found his body.

  She heard his key in the door and raced into the hall.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she demanded. ‘We’ve got to be at the airport in two hours.’

  He held up his hand to silence her. ‘I’m not going,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ She looked at him but he refused to make eye contact. ‘What Rob? What are you trying to say?’

  ‘I… I don’t want to go on holiday.’ He walked into the kitchen, with Eilis hot on his heels, heart thumping.

  ‘Since when has someone not wanted to go on holiday? How is that even possible? What do you mean? You don’t want to go? To Greece? With me? What’s wrong? Is it me, you don’t want to go with me?’ She could hear herself beginning to screech.

  ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t go. I just can’t.’

  ‘Are you serious? I can’t go on my own. I can’t just go without you. People don’t do that – what you are doing? What the actual fuck?’

  ‘I’m sorry. But I can’t. And I won’t. Please believe me when I say I am sorry. I am really incredibly sorry, but I can’t do this.’

  ‘But we’ve paid for it. It’s all paid for!’ Stay calm, she thought, he’s having a breakdown. I’m having a breakdown. ‘Come on.’ She modulated her voice, as though speaking to a nervous horse. ‘We’ll have a lovely time,’ she pleaded. ‘We will relax. You will eat nice food, swim in the sea, read some books. It’s what you need. What we both need.’

  ‘I can’t.’ He sounded final. ‘Go on your own. But there’s no way I’m going.’ He walked out of the kitchen and a moment later, she heard the front door closing. He was gone.

  Later, she emailed the owner of the villa and explained that, due to illness, they would not be able to travel. The owner was very sorry and she hoped that Rob would be feeling well again soon, but she was sure they understood but there was nothing she could do about returning their money.

  Eilis spent the day watching the clock. We would be driving to the airport now, she thought. And parking. Now, we’d be checking in. And then going for a cup of tea. We’d be sitting on the plane, now, ready for take-off. I’d be reading and Rob would have his eye mask on, ear plugs in. And now we’d be getting off the plane, that first blast of heat after the chill of Ireland. But there was Eilis sat in an empty house.

  Rob came home but didn’t speak to her for the rest of the weekend. Granted he was barely around, but whenever Eilis tried to speak to him, he would simply say, ‘I can’t talk.’

  She volleyed between fear for his mental health and raging hatred. It had better be a nervous breakdown, she thought, because if it was anything else, she might have to kill him. But without wrestling him to the ground lion/gazelle style, her options were limited. You can’t make someone who very obviously doesn’t want to talk, talk, and even though she was confused and hurt, she knew she couldn’t force him to.

  This is punishment, she thought. Punishment for even thinking of someone else. I deserve this horribleness.

  Rob carried on his normal routine, he went into work as though nothing had happened, just cancelled his leave, patients were booked in by his secretary and he just carried on.

  Meanwhile, Eilis stayed at home, scared to leave the house, in case anyone asked why she wasn’t bobbing and bathing in the Aegean. Initially, she stayed indoors, trying to work out what had gone wrong, and then, eventually, ventured into the garden, wearing her mother’s old cardigan and weeding her beds so beautifully, she would have won awards. She hadn’t called Steph and Melissa, they assumed she was in Greece, she carried the shame and embarrassment alone.

  On the day before she was meant to be returning to work, the weather was not gardening weather. It was summer in the rest of Europe, but Ireland, sentimentally, was clinging to winter. She got in the car and went for a drive, wondering what to do. The rain was coming down in sheets, she saw one old woman being blown off her feet as she walked across a zebra crossing, umbrellas were being forced inside out and down the rain came. She realized that she was close to Sandycove and close to O’Malley’s Garden.

  Slug pellets, she decided, were something she could not live without another moment. The lashing rain meant the streets were deserted and she parked and ran into the shop, the bell jangling, as she stood inside the door soaked through.

  Charlie appeared from the back office, behind the till. She wished she hadn’t given up on him, this, the gardening club. She didn’t care if it was just a silly fantasy, it had sustained her. Real life was so rewarding.

  ‘Eilis!’ He looked delighted. ‘We haven’t seen you for a while. Have you been away?’

  She hadn’t told him about the holiday so she felt relieved that she didn’t have to lie with him. ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Just working.’

  He nodded, understandingly. ‘What a day,’ he said. ‘It’s not one for gardening.’

  ‘No… but I needed a few things for the weekend. Slug pellets and… and…’ You, she thought. Slug pellets and you. An exquisite juxtaposition. Never, in the history of love and romance had slug pellets played such an important role.

  ‘I’ll get them for you.’ He went over the back of the shop and handed her a packet. ‘These are the best. Organic.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She tried to look at the packet but she wasn’t really thinking. He could have handed over a bag of sherbet lemons for all she cared.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I can’t think.’ Her mind had gone blank.

  ‘A cup of tea? I have the kettle on.’ He motioned to the bac
k of the shop to the little office.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, hesitating and wondering what she was doing.

  He smiled, he looked so happy. And she felt happy being around him, he was a life-force, someone it was good to be around. It was the first time in two weeks that she had felt like this, not the constant dread that something had gone wrong, but there was the feeling that something was most definitely right.

  ‘Take a seat,’ he said, pointing at a little chair. Charlie began boiling a kettle and putting two teabags into mugs.

  Eilis had no idea that offices could be such lovely places. There were old, faded cushions on the chairs; a vintage-looking lamp on a desk with a laptop, surrounded by papers. There were succulents in pots on the table and two pots of African violets. A small stove was glowing with burning logs. It was practically the nicest place she had ever been.

  There were books and books on gardening. And on the wall, a signed photo of Monty Don and a framed poster of a quote.

  Life is for daily adventures, cold ocean swims and interesting conversations and deep kisses.

  She read it out loud.

  ‘Is that your creed?’ she asked. ‘Is that the rule you live your life by?’

  He shrugged, slightly embarrassedly. ‘Kind of. It’s my “dance like no one is watching”, I suppose.’ He sighed. ‘Ah, I don’t know. It’s a bit corny but I bought it years ago, when I was an idealistic student. And then, when I was giving up the law, I found it in a box in my Mam’s house, and it kind of summed up what I was thinking… what I wanted. It’s a bit cheesy.’

  ‘I suppose one doesn’t have an adventure every day,’ she said. ‘That might be asking a bit too much.’

  ‘But,’ he said, ‘strange things do happen every day, interesting things. You’ve just got to notice them, be alive to them.’

  She thought about it. He was right. ‘It’s too easy to just get through your day, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You know, just getting from bedtime to bedtime.’

  ‘I like strange things,’ he said, smiling. ‘And strange people. They are the best kind, the good strange. Normal-strange, if you know what I mean?’

  She did. ‘I’m strange-strange,’ she said. ‘I’m working towards normal-strange.’

  ‘Me too,’ he said, placing a mug in front of her. ‘I’m hoping their normalness will rub off on me.’

  She looked at him, the crinkles at his eyes, the greying hair, and the brown-freckly forearms. She wanted to reach over and touch him. She wanted to feel his skin against hers. She wanted to kiss him.

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He took a big sup of tea and put his booted feet up on the spare chair and leaned back, smiling at her.

  ‘The other parts of the quote. The ocean swims and interesting conversations…’

  ‘Well, I’m a champion of rambling conversations,’ he said. ‘I don’t know about interesting… you can be the judge of that…?’

  Eilis raised her eyebrows and smiled at him.

  ‘But,’ he said, ‘get me onto organic versus chemical gardening and I can go on for hours. Or Leinster rugby… now that’s a subject I can bore even myself about.’

  ‘And ocean swims?’

  ‘No, but I swim in Seapoint every morning. Does the Irish Sea count? It’s amazing. It feels incredible. Some of the gardening group go down there. George is a year-round swimmer… did you meet him?’

  You have such a beautiful mouth, Eilis, was thinking. And such animated hands. She had meandered into thinking of the deep kisses part of the quote.

  ‘George?’ She was jolted back into the now. ‘He’s the one engaged in one-man combat with the Japanese knotweed, isn’t he?’

  ‘That’s the man. He’s great. Swims in the morning, goes home for breakfast with his wife – he makes her a boiled egg every morning and brings her a copy of the Times – and then works in the homeless shelter every day. Doing accounts for them and managing all the finances. He used to be an accountant, you see.’

  ‘What a nice thing to do.’

  ‘Total gent. He’s definitely normal-strange, if you ask me, the best kind.’ He stood up. ‘Now, I think I have something nice to have with the tea.’ He rummaged around and found a tin. ‘Shortbread?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ She took one.

  He balanced again on the back two legs of his chair, his hands behind his head.

  ‘It’s so cosy in here,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s nice having you here.’

  ‘It feels nice for me too,’ she said, feeling all shy. It was nice, so nice to be there with him. She suddenly thought she wanted to tell him everything about herself, about her Mam, about Rob and about her job.

  He almost read her mind. ‘So, Ms McCarthy,’ he said, ‘tell me about the hospital and what is your plan for getting out.’

  ‘Getting out? I hadn’t thought of getting out,’ she said. ‘It’s not an option. I’ve worked so hard to get there. I can’t just give it up, it would be like the last twenty years were for nothing, a waste of time.’

  He didn’t say anything except look at her expectantly.

  ‘I just can’t. It’s been such a struggle, such a slog to get here. I can’t walk away.’

  He still just looked at her.

  ‘My patients,’ she said, desperately, knowing that it was not her lone efforts keeping the people of Ireland from death’s door. ‘And… and… what else would I do?’

  ‘We’re here for a good time, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘Not to make other people happy.’

  ‘But it’s for my Mam,’ she said.

  ‘But has it made you happy?’

  ‘Well, there are moments, brief nanoseconds where you think you’ve made a difference but you never have time to dwell on it for very long. It’s the mistakes, the problems, the times you can’t help people, that’s what you dwell on, those are the things that stay with you.’

  He was listening, intently, to every word. ‘It sounds tough. It sounds like you have to be superhuman.’

  ‘You do… and I’m not.’

  ‘You may not be superhuman, but I think you’re a super human,’ he said, smiling but a blush was spreading across his face.

  She suddenly laughed with total pleasure at this sweet, childlike compliment. ‘Thank you. I actually think that could be the second nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.’

  ‘What was the first?’ he said.

  ‘You said I had an aura of strength,’ she confessed. ‘It’s not true but it was nice to hear it.’

  ‘There’s a lot more where that came from,’ he said, looking at her. He reached out his hand and felt for hers and for a few moments they sat like that, her small hand in his large rough one, feeling the heat and warmth from him, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. And then she looked at him and he was looking at her and there was that energy, that connection that was so strong, that the next moment they were on their feet, the table pushed to one side, his hands around her waist, and they were kissing, deeply, his leg pressed between her thighs. This was better than she had felt in a long, long time.

  At last, they stopped, and noses touching, they looked into each other’s eyes. ‘I think,’ he said huskily, ‘that you are quite the superest human I’ve ever seen.’ He stopped. ‘And ever kissed.’

  ‘I think you are superest too,’ she said ungrammatically but she didn’t care, not even about Rob, wherever he was. ‘I think you are quite amazing.’

  ‘I’ve been wanting to do this the since the first moment I set eyes on you…’ he said.

  ‘In the hospital?’

  ‘Yes, totally. I know it wasn’t the best first meeting and I’m sorry but I remember thinking how beautiful you were and how calm and kind you were, to both of us, Mam and me. And so I sent you the flowers because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And then when I saw you, standing behind that pink lilac tree, I thought you were the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen. And th
e sexiest.’

  ‘Really?’ She didn’t quite believe him. No one ever said that to her. Rob wasn’t one for effusive compliments.

  ‘Oh my God, yes!’ He laughed at her incredulity. ‘Your face, the way you frown when you are thinking, your soul… it’s like your goodness, the fact that you are such a good person, just shines through.’

  ‘Good? I’m not good.’ She meant this, other people were good. She saw it every day, the patients braving their illnesses with dignity, the nurses at the hospital who had the worst jobs to do but did it uncomplainingly, Steph living with that bully, Melissa and her mother. They were good people. She was just her.

  ‘I think you are,’ he said. ‘And intelligent. And brave. It’s all there. In your aura… but,’ he continued, taking her face in both his hands, ‘it makes me want to do this…’

  He kissed her again and she had no idea that being kissed and kissing back could be so beautiful. And so passionate.

  He pulled away hesitantly. ‘I could do this forever,’ he said. ‘Maybe you might be amenable?’ She felt herself forgetting to debate the merits of her goodness and losing herself in the moment.

  ‘Have you done this before?’ she whispered in his ear.

  He laughed. ‘No, I haven’t made a habit of it, no. But I could with you.’

  She was just about to agree when another terrible thought struck her. Even though she wasn’t technically married, she felt as though she was committing adultery which, as far as her brain could work right then, was a prisonable offence. As awful as Rob was behaving, they were still, officially, as far she knew (and God knows she didn’t know very much), a couple. Even if she had her doubts.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ he said, laughing again. ‘It’s unprofessional but… worth it.’ He was smiling at her. It was so nice to be smiled at, properly smiled at, as though you are actually making someone happy. What a lovely feeling this was, but she couldn’t… it wasn’t right. ‘Eilis,’ he said, ‘would you like to come to dinner tonight? I am cooking… I can pick you up and feed you and look after you and you don’t have to do anything, just sit there and listen to me rambling on and then I can listen to you rambling on and then… then I can drop you home at any time you wish. Or you could… stay.’