Time Out

by Emma Murray

  ‘Well, that place is full of snobby cows and dads shagging their secretaries,’ I say. ‘You’ll never fit in.’

  I know I’m being a cow, but I am hurt and angry and I want her to feel the same way.

  ‘I don’t care if I fit in or not, Saoirse,’ she shoots back.

  And that makes me even angrier.

  ‘That’s not the point, Bea!’ I say, and I’m bloody furious.

  ‘What is the point then?’ she says, shaking her head in frustration.

  ‘I don’t want to do the school thing all by myself!’ I shout.

  I am dimly aware that I am over-reacting but for now I don’t care. If I want to behave like a child, I damn well will.

  Between David almost getting killed, the shock of seeing Ryan again, and Bea’s massive 180, there is nothing I want more than to scream and shout.

  Thankfully, before things escalate further, Ryan walks into the kitchen.

  ‘Harry needs a drink,’ Ryan mumbles. He has probably overheard Bea and I arguing. Well, he can go fuck himself too.

  Bea gets up immediately, finds a clean cup for Harry and gives it to him. Without warning, a memory of Ryan and me standing on the clifftop flashes through my mind. I keep my head down when he passes by and I’m pretty sure he pretends I’m just as invisible.

  Bea sits back down at the table just as I announce that I’m leaving. I’m pissed off and I just want to go home.

  ‘Fine,’ Bea says, huffily. She doesn’t see me out.

  On the walk home, I try to process what just happened. Ryan. My best friend, Bea’s ex. Ryan who told me I had ‘kind eyes’, who I’m pretty sure wanted to kiss me, and then whispered a promise of ‘another time’ when we were interrupted by my mother. Ryan, who never told me that he had cheated on my best friend when she was pregnant. Ryan, who after pouring his heart out to me, had made out at Bea’s house that we were strangers. Ryan potentially ‘moving closer’ to be near Harry and Bea. Oh, and let’s not forget Bea’s decision to send Harry to St Enda’s – the ultimate betrayal. Well, fuck her, and – because I am in the mood to be irrational – fuck them all.

  My mind is spinning so hard that I walk slap-bang into Tania Henderson, leader of the Organics. Her blond hair is animated-princess curled and she is wearing a dress so flowy and flowery that she looks as though Laura Ashley has just thrown up on her.

  ‘Whoops!’ she says in that overly loud way people use to indicate that it’s entirely your fault.

  I refuse to apologise even though she’s right.

  She recovers from the stand-off first. I am dimly aware that she is holding a loaf of bread in one hand.

  ‘Saoirse!’ she says, giving me a warm embrace with her free arm, as I stand stock-still.

  She looks down at the bread, hugs it to her and says, shame-faced, ‘I know! White bread! So much sugar! It’s not for me, it’s for a friend.’

  I don’t bother telling her I couldn’t give a fuck about the ‘dangers’ of white bread.

  ‘How’s Anna? Is she still keeping you up at night?’ she says, laughing.

  The bitch. It’s been three years since Anna regularly woke in the night, but Tania still uses my ‘failure’ to crack the sleeping code against me.

  ‘Sleeps like a log!’ I say, but because I’m not a big enough person to ignore it, and I’m in a bad mood, I can’t resist following up with, ‘Do you still have a night nanny?’

  Boom! Her mouth drops open.

  I’m not supposed to know her ‘shameful secret’ – how, after all her boasting about cracking the sleeping code, she had to resort to a night nanny to rock her precious Heath into dreamland. I silently thank David for handing me that grenade a few years ago.

  She gives me a tight smile and mutters something about the night nanny being in the past, and I just cock my head and pretend to listen. She starts to go on about her second child, Daisy, who is so different from Heath, and has the whole family regularly in stitches with her two-year-old antics. She clearly prefers Daisy to Heath but I don’t say anything.

  Then she shocks me about asking me something about myself.

  ‘Do you still have just the one?’ she says, looking at my stomach.

  ‘Yes, just Anna,’ I say, and I can’t help but feel defensive as people always ask this question when you have an only child. Usually they go on to sympathise with you – if it turns out you can’t genuinely have another one – and the child – because the child must be lonely and feel deprived without any siblings to beat the shit out of. What people don’t like to hear is that you only want one, especially when you are perfectly healthy and capable of having another.

  Just as I’m hoping that Tania won’t continue the ‘only child’ questioning further, she utters the immortal line, ‘Do you think you’ll have another one?’

  I say no. She asks why.

  Well, let’s see. Because I’m happy enough with the way things are, because financially it would be a struggle, and more importantly, because Anna would likely smother the child in its sleep out of sheer jealousy. But since it’s none of Tania’s business, I say nothing of the sort and just reply: ‘Because I’m dead inside.’

  She laughs in a ‘poor you!’ sort of way. As if I’m so devastated by only having one child that I need to make jokes to cover it up. Just as I’m about to make my excuses, she says one word that forces me to stand my ground.

  ‘Schools!’ she says, with the enthusiasm of a Mary Poppins imitator.

  Here we go. It’s all over Vale Mums that her little darling is going to an exclusive boarding school outside London, and I imagine she just wants to rub it in. So you could have knocked me down with an underweight model when she told me how pleased she was that Heath has got into Woodvale Primary, my favourite school. The one that rejected Anna. The FREE school.

  ‘What?’ I say. ‘I thought you were going private?’

  Her voice drops to a whisper and she tells me that given that the economy isn’t doing so well, she can’t ‘100 per cent rely on Giles’ to pay the fees for both Heath and Daisy.

  ‘Does that mean you’re going back to work then?’ I say. If she’s worried about money issues, why doesn’t she get up off her flowery-patterned arse and start earning instead of spending all day tearing other mums down on social media?

  I watch as an expensively manicured hand flies to a fairy-pink lipsticked mouth.

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t go back to work! I mean, the children are so young,’ she says.

  I feel my eyes rolling to the back of my head.

  Then she asks me about schools and where I’m going to send Anna.

  ‘Well, she got a place at the shit school,’ I say. ‘But she’s not going.’

  Tania scrunches up her face.

  ‘You know, some of my best friends are going to send their children there. I think if enough decent people send their kids there, it will weed out the rougher elements eventually,’ she says, lowering her voice.

  ‘Would you send Heath and Daisy there?’ I say, just to watch her blush and cough and splutter her way out of it. She shakes her head and splutters something about the shit school being a bit too ‘urban’ and a little too centred towards ‘sports’ and Heath isn’t the sporty type. Bored with the total bullshit coming out of her mouth, I tell her I have to dash.

  As I am walking away, she calls after me, ‘How’s Bea?’

  Now she’s just being a cow because she has hated Bea ever since that antenatal class meeting. I pause for a moment, then turn, and say, ‘Bea? Bea’s fine! In fact, she’s fucking Ryan Gosling.’ Then I walk away before I can see her expression change. As much as I am annoyed with Bea, I’m not letting anything slip to the likes of Tania Henderson.

  As I turn the corner into my street, a flash of relief rushes over me: Anna may not have got into Woodvale Primary, but at least I won’t have to put up with that organic-munching judgemental bitch for the next seven years.

  I open the front door and almost bump into Anna, who is standing
far too close to the letterbox, with her hands behind her back. She fixes me with a look, and says, ‘The postman has been, Mummy.’

  Despite my whirling mind, I can’t help but smile at her serious expression.

  ‘That’s great, Anna,’ I say, with as much enthusiasm as I can under the circumstances. ‘Anything interesting?’

  She takes a piece of paper from behind her back, and waves it at me.

  ‘Daddy says it means I don’t have to go to the shit school now,’ she says, jumping up and down.

  ‘“Shit” is a grown-up word,’ David says, walking down the stairs with a big smile plastered all over his face.

  He comes to a stop in front of me and gives me a big kiss.

  ‘The letter arrived this morning. A space has opened up in Woodvale Primary. The council say the place is Anna’s if we want it!’

  My heart jumps in my chest. This is FANTASTIC news. We don’t have to pay for Anna’s education. No more poring over spreadsheets trying to work out how many years of eating beans on toast we will have to endure if we dare to go private. No more stress about waiting lists. She’s IN. We’re safe for the next seven years. David and Anna are doing a little dance now, while singing along to Anna’s favourite song, ‘Uptown Funk’, and I want to join in but I can’t. I try to tell myself it’s because I don’t want be stuck with that bitch Tania Henderson for the next seven years, but it’s really because I’m going to have to face school without my best friend.

  Suddenly I feel a little hand slip into mine. ‘Come on, Mummy!’ my beautiful daughter smiles. ‘Family dance!’ David and I join hands, and we form a little circle, and I can’t help but laugh at Anna’s sheer strength and determination to keep us all in time to the beat of her own singing.

  I squeeze the hands of the people I love most in the world, and catch David’s eye. ‘It’s about time we had a family dance!’ he says.

  Before I can reply, Anna looks up and says, ‘You’re damn right, Daddy!’

  I lean down and give her a big kiss on one of her soft, downy cheeks. Bad language or not, that child knows what she’s talking about.

  24

  It’s one week on from the terrorist attack and life is beginning to return to normal. David is back at work, and I try my best not to agonise about his safety. Things are getting better between us, partly stemming from the relief of Anna getting into Woodvale, as well as David opening up about his true feelings.

  Over the last few days I have been inundated with texts from Dee and Jen, who have created a WhatsApp group especially for the purpose of harassing me. To my delight, Jen has agreed to come over for my mother’s seventieth birthday party, and Dee has promised a trip after she gets through the mania of ‘shitting Christmas’ – ‘I’ll be in even more need of a break then.’ I can’t wait to see them again.

  I haven’t heard from Bea since she broke the news to me about Ryan, and her decision to send Harry to private school, but in a way I am glad to have some time to myself to think everything through. While I am in reflective mode, I should really focus on finalising the pitch, but having Anna full time doesn’t make life easy, and the iPad only goes so far.

  I bribe Anna to come to the shops with me to pick up a few bits and pieces for the party with a promise of going to the playground afterwards. I hate the playground. Every time I go there, I fully believe that I should be decorated with medals for patience and bravery as acknowledgement for the extreme suffering I go through as a mother to ensure my daughter is entertained.

  The second we walk through the playground gates, Anna heads for the ‘spinny thing’, the whirling hell of steel that she likes to spin in until she turns green. I put her in it and give her my most violent push as a passive-aggressive way of getting out all my frustration in the guise of giving my child a great time. After I push, I turn away to avoid watching her whirl round and round. Just watching her spin so fast makes my stomach churn. I focus on a tree for a bit instead, before I hear a voice that makes me turn cold.

  ‘Gives you vertigo too, hey?’

  My stomach drops and my temples start to pulse because he is the very last person I want to see right now – or ever again. I take a deep breath and turn round slowly.

  Ryan stands three feet away from me with Harry wriggling in his arms.

  ‘Hi, Harry!’ I say brightly, deliberately ignoring his father.

  Harry, in turn, ignores me, and announces that he wants to go on the spinny thing with Anna. Ryan turns to put Harry in with Anna, who is delighted to see her best friend, and they both beg for Ryan to give them the ‘biggest push ever’! Laughing, Ryan uses one arm to effortlessly push them much faster than I could, and when they are a mere blur, he turns back to me, the smile fading from his face.

  He runs a tanned hand through his hair.

  ‘Where’s your ex-girlfriend?’ I ask, pointedly, hating myself for sounding so bitter.

  His shoulders drop and he tells me that Bea has taken a day off and plans to join him and Harry a little later.

  I glare at him for a bit and then look away.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry about what happened at Bea’s house,’ he says.

  ‘You pretended not to know me,’ I reply, flatly.

  ‘I just couldn’t believe it when I saw you standing there. I didn’t know what else to do,’ he says, his eyes pleading now.

  Well, fuck him.

  ‘How about, “What a coincidence! Saoirse and I have already met!” That way, we could at least have told Bea the truth.’

  Ryan looks away for a moment and then turns his blue eyes back to me.

  ‘Saoirse, I spent the entire night apologising for what happened with Frances and begging Bea to let me see my son. What would she have done if she knew about us?’ he says, taking a step closer.

  ‘What about us?’ I say, feeling a flush growing from my neck to my cheeks. ‘There is no “us”!’

  He takes another step towards me and I freeze.

  We stare at each other for what seems like minutes, until somewhere behind me I hear two shrill voices complaining about the lack of spinning. Grateful for the distraction, I turn away from Ryan, and give Anna and Harry the biggest push I can muster, matching their spins with the whirling thoughts in my head.

  He is behind me now – too close. I can feel his breath on my ear.

  ‘I know you feel it too,’ he says.

  A spark of outrage ignites within me. Who does this idiot think he is? The arrogance of him! I whip round to give him a piece of my mind, but before I can even form the words, his mouth is on mine.

  My first thought is, ‘Ryan is kissing me.’ My second thought is, ‘How the hell did that happen?’ and my third thought is, ‘Is he wearing flavoured lip balm?’

  Suddenly, the whole situation seems utterly ludicrous. Here I am, a forty-year-old married woman standing in the middle of a playground being kissed by someone I thought I was attracted to. Not only that, but he’s someone who’s just slept with my best friend, and before that, he cheated on her when she was pregnant with his child. When he tries to slip in the tongue, I burst into giggles and push him away. The relief is overwhelming. To know that I have no feelings for this man after all is incredible. He may be gorgeous to look at, but it’s like being kissed by a wax version of him. In fact, I’d be better off kissing one of those replicas of the real Ryan Gosling in Madame Tussauds.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he says, head cocked, mouth in a straight line. I see a flash of annoyance cross those blue eyes: I have hurt his ego.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Harry and Anna have moved on to the swings, clearly fed up waiting for us to give them another push. I take a step towards them, but Ryan grabs my hand and tries to tug me back.

  A familiar voice causes us both to freeze.

  ‘Get your fucking hands off my best friend, you utter prick.’

  Ryan looks over in surprise and lets my hand drop.

  It’s Bea and she looks and sounds exactly like she did that day s
o many years ago when I was trapped on the bus with Anna.

  Absolutely fucking livid.

  Ryan whips around, his hands raised in surrender. I stay frozen to the spot.

  ‘Harry, come here NOW,’ Bea says in her most formidable voice. Clearly picking up on the murderous tone, Harry scrambles off his swing and runs over to his mum. Anna lets out a wail at Harry’s sudden departure, and I immediately rush over to the swing to comfort her. Minutes go by as I try to calm her down. When she finally stops sobbing, I turn round to find that Ryan, Bea and Harry have already gone.

  I walk home with a very sulky Anna, trying to process what has just happened. I feel sick. Why hadn’t I told her the truth about meeting Ryan in Ireland? What must she be thinking?

  As soon as I get back, I give Anna a bag of crisps, and call Bea, but she doesn’t answer. To be honest, I don’t blame her. Then I text her and hope and pray she texts me back.

  I spend the rest of the day and the day after that staring at my phone but nothing happens. I’m constantly on edge and I know I’m taking it out on David and Anna. What makes it worse is that I can’t talk to David about it, without admitting my previous attraction to Ryan.

  After three days of no contact, I take Anna’s hand and knock on Bea’s door. This is usually the day she works from home, but to my disappointment, Maria answers and tells me that Bea has been called into the office. She invites Anna in to play with Harry but, much to Anna’s fury (and Maria’s surprise), I decline. It wouldn’t be right for me to leave Anna in Bea’s house under the circumstances. Instead I bribe Anna with an ice cream on the way home.

  At some point during the evening, it occurs to me that I haven’t finished work yet; in fact, I haven’t looked at it since Bea froze me out of her life. I tell David that I’m going to work for a bit, and he grabs my hand.

  ‘Are you all right, Saoirse?’ he says, and his voice is so full of concern that my eyes immediately fill with tears.