Now and Then

by Mary O'Sullivan

“Well, the point is,” Ben continued, “that Piper’s brother, has read my CV and –”

  “Damn it, Ben! You mean you sent your CV to him and never said a word to me? How could you?”

  “He didn’t,” Della told me calmly. “I did.”

  That figured. I would not give her the satisfaction of showing my hurt. I was angrier with Ben at that stage than with Della. I leaned across the table and touched his arm, forcing him to look me straight in the face.

  “Did you agree to this?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you thinking? Surely you’re not serious about working in the States?”

  “Well, there’s no goddamn work, here is there? I can’t be a nanny for the rest of my life, Leah. Don’t you understand that?”

  I felt my breath catch in my chest as if I had been punched. I sat back and stared at Ben. At my husband of six years. I saw a stranger.

  “So, a nanny, is it? That’s how you think of looking after your own children.”

  “They’re yours too. I don’t see you doing much looking after.”

  A smile flitted across Della’s face. She sat a little taller, obviously proud that her son had cut his wife down to size.

  “You hardly want him to waste his years of study and his qualifications,” she said to me.

  Her smug, superior expression made me feel like slapping her. How she would love that. Proof that she had always been right about my lack of class. But tough titty to you, Della. Mam, the kind and gentle woman who had reared me on her own, had taught me to hold my head high and be proud of who I am.

  “What I expect, Della, is that any decisions affecting our family situation are made by Ben and me. Without interference from anybody else, including you.”

  I heard Ben’s sharp intake of breath. What was wrong with him? Could he not see that Della was using his jobless situation to win back the control she had lost when her son married me? He glared at me. I would have glared back but I found myself very close to tears.

  “I’m sure you didn’t mean that, Leah,” he said. “You know Mum is just trying to help.”

  “By setting you up in the States? How does that help? What about the children? The cottage? Our life here?”

  Della played a canny game. She smiled at me, her head tilted slightly to one side as if to say she was very puzzled, but willing to try to understand me.

  “That’s the whole point, Leah,” she said. “What life here? This economy is going to take at least five years to recover. And possibly another ten for Paircmoor to catch up after that. Do you want your children to grow up without opportunities?”

  “I don’t want them to grow up without their father,” I said as I pushed back my chair and stood.

  Ben stood also and faced me.

  “Why do you assume that I would go and leave my family behind? Is that what you want?”

  Now he asked me what I wanted. Now that Della had set everything in motion. Past experience told me she would already have all the details in place in order to get her own way. Ben was right, I had assumed he would go and leave me behind. All our hopes and promises to each other, our grand visions of an idyllic childhood in rural Ireland for Rob and the twins, even our love, meant nothing when his mother could so effortlessly manipulate him into wanting to fly off to the States. Probably as a passenger on her broomstick. I felt tears sting my eyes and did not want to give Della the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I took a deep breath.

  “Della, please tell my husband exactly what commitments you have made on his behalf. And if the children and I are included in your scheme.”

  I went towards the door. Then before I could stop myself, I turned around to Ben.

  “For God’s sake, grow a pair of balls, Ben. Stand up for yourself and your family. About time you cut the apron strings.”

  I twirled on my heel and left the kitchen, knowing I had allowed my temper lead me into Della’s cleverly laid trap. I had vindicated her low opinion of me and further alienated Ben. I went to bed. Alone.

  I gave up on the idea of getting any sleep. It was three o’clock in the morning. The house was still, yet echoing with the creaks and groans of a hundred-year-old home whispering its history into the darkness. I had heard Della noisily start up her car before midnight. I listened in vain for sounds of Ben coming to bed. I could picture him, still sitting at the kitchen table, shoulders drooped, head bowed. Or maybe that was the wrong image. Perhaps he was online, researching his new job, his new home, his new life in California. I tossed and turned until I was suffocating under the weight of worry. I got out of bed and went to check on the children.

  Tiptoeing into the twins’ room, I almost tripped over Ben’s feet. He was sitting on the chair just inside the door. The chair with gold-brocade upholstery and ornate Queen Anne legs. It had been so right when we had lived in our big home in Dublin, but looked pretentious in the cottage. Ben’s long legs were sprawled out, his chin on his chest and his mouth slightly open as he slept. So typical of him, just closing his eyes to the problems, dodging difficult conversations.

  The nightlight cast a dim glow around the room, laying shadows on the planes of the twins’ faces, highlighting Anna’s blonde curls and Josh’s extraordinarily long lashes. Even in sleep, Anna was restless, moving her arms, rolling from her back onto her side. A little smile curved her cherub mouth. She’s playing with the angels my mother used to say. I heard the chair creak and turned back to look at Ben.

  “I’m sorry, Leah,” he whispered and held out his hand towards me.

  I hesitated for just a second. He looked so vulnerable with his hair tossed and his eyes sleepy. I was tired. God, I was so tired, and I was facing getting up again in a couple of hours to organise another day for the children. And the salon. It was not the time to have the Della and America conversation. Or the other conversation I must soon have with him. But not yet. I took his hand and smiled.

  “Let’s sleep,” I said. “It will all look better in the morning.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Friday 26th November 2010

  After I dropped Rob off at school, I rushed to the salon, hoping Mags might be there. When she did not turn up by nine thirty, I rang her. No reply. I was going through the list of appointments to see how best I could organise the day with only Tina to help, when Mags rang back.

  “How’s Claire?” I asked.

  There were sounds of sniffling, then sobs.

  “Mags? Are you alright?”

  “Claire is . . . she might be . . . she may never walk again.”

  Shocked, I flopped onto the nearest seat.

  “But I thought it was just a minor accident. A tip at traffic lights.”

  “It was. And she was wearing her seat belt. Nevertheless she’s in agony. She can’t move with the pain. We’ll just have to hope and pray.”

  Mags sounded genuinely terrified for her daughter’s future.

  “When will you have a definite diagnosis?” I asked.

  “She’s having a CT scan this morning.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mags. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “Thank you, Leah. I hate letting you down but Claire needs me now. Even more so when she is discharged from hospital.”

  “When do you expect her home?”

  “Later today.”

  Ah! My initial instinct had been right. Mags was overreacting to a minor injury. I was glad for Claire’s sake. Experience also told me that it would be pointless trying to tie Mags down to any work commitment while she was milking the drama of the accident.

  My instinct and experience were not working as well when it came to understanding my husband. The chaos of the early morning routine at Cowslip Cottage was not conducive to having in-depth discussions, but this morning I sensed a subtle difference in Ben. A defensiveness. Resentment against me I had not felt before. Was that why he had apologised to me in the early hours of the morning? A warning that battle lines had been drawn? With my mother-in-law hold
ing the balance of power.

  The arrival of another customer brought my thoughts back to work. Back to earning enough money to keep a roof over our heads.

  Ben sat at the messy table and watched the children play. It was ten o’clock. The table was not yet cleared after breakfast and the twins were still in their pyjamas. His neck was stiff from the hours he had slept last night in the Queen Anne chair meant for show, not comfort. Josh was working busily at the play cooker while Anna had taken over her brother’s remote-control car. So what now on nature versus nurture, Ben wondered. Josh saw his dad as the homemaker and was learning by example. Anna saw her mother drive off to work every day and she was following suit in her two-year-old way. Did Anna not have an instinct to nurture, Josh to protect? Were their life paths now decided because Ben had lost his job and stayed at home while Leah went out to work?

  Josh had a very piercing cry, as if he hid a stock of utter misery underneath his good humour, then let it all out at once in a banshee-like wail. His cry rang around the kitchen as Anna steered the remote-control car at speed over her brother’s bare toes. Ben felt tempted to sit down on the floor beside Josh and howl with him. Instead he yelled at Anna.

  “For Christ’s sake, Anna! Stop that at once! Why do you always tease him? He’s your brother. You should be kind to him. And Josh, would you ever stand up for yourself!”

  They stared at him. His two precious babies. Anna’s face crumpled and Josh, in shock, stopped wailing. Tears glistened on their cheeks as they moved close together and put their arms around each other. Ben imagined this was how they had spent their nine months in the womb. Protecting each other in their dark, prenatal world. It was probably how they would spend their lives. Always guarding each other from dangers – such as an angry, shouting father. He had never raised his voice to them before. Neither he nor they knew how to cope now that he had, for the first time ever, lost his temper with them. He wanted to scoop them up in his arms, to kiss away their tears, to tell them how much he loved them. He stooped down to their level and reached out. Josh flinched and Anna tightened her hold on her brother.

  Dismayed by their reaction, Ben sat back on his heels.

  “Daddy should not have shouted at you,” he said. “It was a mistake and I am very, very, sorry.”

  They stared at him, still clinging together. He saw hurt in Josh’s eyes, a spark of defiance in Anna’s.

  “You make Anna and Josh cry,” she accused.

  “I did,” Ben agreed. “That’s why I’m saying sorry. But don’t you remember, Anna, it was you made Josh cry? You hurt his toes with the car.”

  She hung her head. Josh took a side-step away from her. Great bloody parenting, Ben thought. Now he was ruining the special relationship between the twins. He remembered his mother’s words of last night. Staying here, burying himself in this jobless, hopeless environment was denying the children the future they deserved. The future he deserved too. He was a far better architect than he was a stay-at-home father.

  Anna suddenly dropped to her knees, then mimicked Ben by sitting back on her heels facing her brother.

  “I very, very sorry, Josh,” she said. “I kiss your toes better.”

  Lying flat, she wriggled her way over to Josh and kissed his toes.

  Ben smiled. Maybe he was not too bad a dad after all. He had taught them the need to apologise when you were wrong. A good life lesson. Except when someone thought you were wrong all the time. Especially when that someone was Leah.

  “Group hug!” Anna ordered.

  He held out his arms and the twins came to him. He pulled them close to him and wondered how he could ever leave them, even for a little while. Just until he got settled in the US, his mother had said. Just until all the visas were sorted.

  “It’s for the children,” she had advised. “They will thank you when they enjoy the opportunities America has to offer. Look at Hugh.”

  Indeed. Look at Hugh Parrish, the paragon. No wonder Ben’s neck was aching. It wasn’t from falling asleep in the silly chair but from a lifetime spent looking up to his older brother. It was even more difficult now that Ben had fallen on his ass, career-wise, while Hugh was climbing to ever more dizzying heights of success.

  Ben glanced down at the blonde and dark heads snuggled against his chest and made a silent vow to do whatever it took to protect Anna and Josh and solemn little Rob. Always.

  The doorbell rang. Anna was up and running before Ben had even risen from his knees. He noted the untidy kitchen as he walked through and hoped whoever was outside did not want to come in. The bell rang again just as he got to the hall. He opened the door and the rainbow colours of Ellen Riggs shone in the greyness of the drizzly morning.

  Ben looked at her in surprise. The only other times she had been there had been to drop Finn off when he had come to play with Rob. The boys were at school now so why was she here?

  Anna threw herself at Ellen and grabbed her hand.

  “Can you read stories?”

  “I’m pretty good at reading,” Ellen said, laughing. “But I must talk to your daddy first. How’s that for you?”

  Ben watched as Josh took Ellen’s other hand and for one moment the treacherous thought crossed his mind that life would be so different if Ellen was their mother. What would it be like to wake up to that radiant smile, those sparkling eyes, her dark hair spread on the pillow, her lithe body curled into his?

  “Come on in,” he invited her, shamed by the realisation that she would see the chaos in the house.

  “We’re a little behind this morning,” he said as he led the way in. “I’m afraid the place is a mess.”

  “We sad first but we all sorry now,” Anna piped up.

  Out of the mouths of babes, Ben thought, as he cleared a space at the table and pulled a chair out for Ellen. Except that Daddy is still sad as well as sorry. And what was he to do now? The children must be washed and dressed, the kitchen tidied, but Ellen said she had to talk to him? Fuck! He couldn’t even organise domestic affairs. How did he think he could go to the US and convince Zach Milburg that he was capable of making decisions involving hundreds of thousands, millions, of client money? He looked from his pyjama-clad children to unfinished cereal congealing in bowls. A band of tension tightened its grip around his head. Ellen was staring at him, a puzzled expression on her face.

  “Are you ill, Ben?”

  “No. I’m fine, thank you. If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes, I’ll get the children settled.”

  He took Josh and a protesting Anna and sat them in front of the TV in the lounge. He loaded their favourite Baby Einstein CD. It was his tried and trusted technique when he needed to have ten uninterrupted minutes.

  When he got back to the kitchen he put on the kettle, cleared the table and, being Irish, chatted to Ellen about the weather. He made them coffee and sat across from her, knowing that he was staring but unable to stop. It was as if Ellen was a figment of his imagination and he feared she would vanish at any moment.

  Aware he was behaving like an adolescent, he spoke abruptly.

  “You mentioned yesterday you had something to tell me.”

  She nodded, then put both her hands around her coffee mug. Her long fingers looked elegant, even wound around the Mickey Mouse mug he had inadvertently given her. Artist’s hands. He could imagine those fingers deftly moulding the pottery pieces for which she was internationally renowned. Gently running through his hair and –

  “I’m leaving,” she said.

  Leaving? Why? When? The questions ran silently along the tension band around his head. He could not, would not voice them. He did not want to hear the answers.

  “Finn needs to have more contact with his father. They both want that.”

  So, there was the why. Finn’s father. Who was he? She was watching him, waiting for him to say something but his questions continued their silent laps inside his head.

  “I have my work to consider too,” she added. “I need to be based in the UK. The l
ogistics of exhibiting internationally from here are daunting. That situation can’t continue either. Not if I want to build my pottery brand.”

  For the first time Ben saw a gleam of ambition in her eyes. Her work was a top seller in Irish design shops and upmarket stores. But it sounded as if that was not enough. She wanted more. More money. More fame.

  “How will Finn feel about leaving his friends in Paircmoor? To go where? Where are you moving to?”

  “London. And you know Finn. He’ll make friends anywhere. He’s excited about going.”

  “Why there? I thought you loved country life. The fresh air you always talk about. The starry night sky devoid of light pollution. The wildlife. The inspiration you said it gives you.”

  “Because that’s where my husband has his practice. It’s not just Finn missing him. I do too.”

  Husband! The shock punched Ben in the gut. She belonged to someone else. Of course she did. Someone she missed. Someone with a ‘practice’. Someone successful. Employed. In control. In charge. A real man.

  “What does he do?” he asked. “Your husband.”

  “He’s a plastic surgeon. Harley Street.”

  Of course he was. Ben could picture this man. Tall, just a hint of silver in his dark hair, surgeon to the rich and famous. He would nip and tuck and look after Ellen, preserve her very special beauty. He focussed on Ellen’s long fingers again now. No jewellery. No wedding ring. She followed his gaze.

  “I don’t wear my rings because of work,” she said. “Doesn’t make me any less married.”

  Even though he was six foot two, Ben felt small. Insignificant. He had been so stupid to fantasise about the beautiful woman sitting across from him. It had been delusional to believe he had any claim on her, just because she passed the boring wait outside the school gate talking to him and they had brought the children on a few outings together. His forte seemed to be in setting himself up for rejection and failure. His shoulders began to pain. Stress, stress, stress. He knew this because he had gone to the doctor asking for medication for his aching shoulders. Instead Dr Kelly had kindly, but firmly, pointed out that it was Ben’s brain, his emotions, his mind, his very soul, crying out for ease from the constant pain of failure.