The Girl I Used to Know

by Faith Hogan

  ‘It will be good for her – you see that too.’ Tess shook her head. ‘She might find that there’s more to life than Ballycove and living like my mother for the rest of her days.’ Tess fidgeted with a ball of wool that lay unravelled across the table between them. She offered to roll it up, but still it lay, unfurled lazily on the lacy cloth that soaked up the midday sun searing through the little windows.

  ‘Hmm. Well, don’t forget, it’s just a year – you’ll be taking care of her probably more than she’ll be taking care of you.’ Beatrice smiled across her half-moon glasses and they both knew that whatever her parents believed, it had always been that way. Nancy would always need minding. She was similar to their mother: pliant, self-deprecating, the people-pleaser of the pair. Tess only hoped that didn’t mean she took after her father. Tess could see no happiness for someone as proud as Harold Cuffe, he was far too tied up with the importance of being right to understand the meaning of being loved.

  Tess did not answer. Instead, she looked out onto the glassy black water below, biting and shifting glints upon unending waves. It seemed to Tess that the waves below them could not mark out the time quickly enough to enter this new world that beckoned so forcefully.

  Chapter 1

  December 29 – Monday

  Coffee with the girls just wore Amanda King out these days. She pulled up onto the Italian pebble drive of her home, exhausted, which of course was ridiculous – it was just coffee after all. First-world problems, that’s what Richard called it, and he must be right.

  Richard was always right, he was a banker, her successful husband of twenty-two years; the love of her life. Richard fell in love with her when she was a flighty art student with notions probably far beyond her talent. She could thank him for saving her from the delusions of herself. He fell in love with her in spite of her permanently charcoaled fingernails. Sometimes it seemed like a lifetime ago, but it was twenty-two years in a few weeks’ time. Life had been generous to them, giving them a perfect family – Casper and Robyn – well, they were teenagers now, in that awkward phase of no man’s land between rebellion, tears and needing her. She could thank Richard too for their lovely home, a three-storey over basement Georgian townhouse; after all, he had paid for it. They had been captivated by it together, perhaps for different reasons. Richard liked the address – you don’t get more exclusive in Dublin than an intact Georgian square, with a private shared park in the centre, on the right side of town. Amanda adored everything about it, from the intricate cornicing and ceiling roses, to the buttery windowpanes that rattled in their frames. She loved the light that shone through every inch of the house at the precise moment when you needed it. Their breakfast bar faced east, their dining room benefited from the western evening sun. She threw herself headlong into a sympathetic restoration project that managed to extend beyond the house to the communal square and more. Amanda spent almost a year researching the history of the square, from the first stone laid on a grey Dublin day in 1798 to each mistress of the house, before she arrived to steer it into its third century.

  She sighed now, as much from exhaustion as the notion of all those women who went before. They suffered on through famine, land wars, world wars and countless other ups and downs; she had not yet lost the grace to feel a little prickly when she complained about her trifling niggles.

  What was she doing? She was complaining about going for coffee in one of Dublin’s smartest hotels, with some of the most glamourous women in the city? She had fallen into this charmed, if somewhat vacuous life. Coffee morning was a ritual at this stage, two hours spent dissecting the lives of everyone outside their circle – people of interest, who hadn’t quite managed to make it in yet. They sat at the same table each week, Amanda and the other wives, feasting on the morsels of gossip gleaned from husbands who only cared in an offhand way.

  Amanda opened the button of her pants and groaned her disappointment. Once again, she had tucked into the plate of sweet biscuits, croissants and scones. Single-handedly, she was a one-woman scoffing machine; she’d cleared the lot. She never remembered eating them, but, as usual, she had found herself reaching for something to nibble and before she knew it, the tiered plate was empty. Ah, well, no point crying over spilled milk or eaten pastries, she thought regretfully.

  Amanda sat for a moment, looking up at her beautiful home. If she only looked up, past the granite steps, the glossy black handrails, she could convince herself that everything was perfect. It was her dream home, her lovely Georgian house, with its original fanlight and reconstructed glossy front door, brasses glinting in the afternoon unseasonable sunshine. It still made her so proud that she had pulled this place back from the brink. Well, she had refurbished it thanks to Richard’s money and an army of specialist builders and advisors. Unfortunately, it took just a glimpse to the lower left to catch sight of the only blight on the vista of their lovely mansion. A sturdy little porch jutted out of what they called the basement, although the windows and door appeared to be at ground level. Tess Cuffe, their sitting tenant, had hung a line of washing out again.

  Amanda tried to block it out of view, but it was hard to ignore an orange clothes line clipped with neat green pegs, a sail of freshly washed, if very worn linen flapping on the icy afternoon breeze. Indeed, you had to wonder, when you looked at those almost threadbare sheets, if they might not be considered vintage at this point. On the end of the line, a couple of blouses fluttered mournfully, their flowers long faded by hot washes and too much cheap detergent. My God, but they probably didn’t even sell blouses like those anymore. They were truly ancient, outmoded – collectibles that no one would ever want to collect. Amanda wondered who wore them in this day and age. The answer of course was Tess Cuffe – she was the only person Amanda had ever known to wear clothes that might have fallen off a shelf in Woolworths forty years before. Presumably, they were her work clothes, although, for the life of her Amanda couldn’t fathom who would want to employ a woman like Tess Cuffe.

  Oh, God. Amanda could feel the familiar swell of dread in her stomach. Richard would be incandescent if he arrived home to see Tess was hanging out her washing again. They all knew she only did it because Amanda had expressly written it in their residents’ association code of conduct. It was clear as day, residents were not to lower the tone of Swift Square by embarking on any activity more suited to the rear of their properties. It went for barbecues as much as pottering about and, certainly, it went for drying clothes. She made the mistake of mentioning it to Tess, just once, years before, and ever since, as soon as the sun shone, lines of washing were pegged out with spiteful haste at the front of number 4, Swift Square.

  It annoyed Richard more than anyone; it was like a rebellious one finger to all the money he had wasted over the years trying to get Tess out. Amanda hated to use the word evicted, it was all too messy and unthinkable, even now. Still, after all these years, Richard could spend an entire evening whining and complaining about Tess. Funny, but in the beginning, Amanda believed it would pass. After all, Tess Cuffe was the reason they picked this place up at a bargain price. Tess knew that too and perhaps resented them all the more for it. Richard did everything he could think of to induce her to leave. When bullying her did not work, he tried money. He offered her enough to put a down payment on a nice cosy flat. She could have her own place in a neighbourhood where her underwear would not be the only washing hanging on clotheslines along a veranda designed for that purpose. Tess had been unyielding. It seemed to Amanda, the more Richard made it plain he wanted her out, the more Tess dug herself in to stay. There had been so many small squabbles over the years, but then in a moment of fury, Richard instigated legal proceedings. He wanted her gone and he could call it anything the judges preferred to hear, but in the end, they lost. Tess was still here; still paying her legally agreed ten bob a week rent. It was a covenant agreement, based on some old law that Tess managed to unearth with free legal aid. The amount meant nothing in terms of financial gain for the Kings
but gave immense satisfaction to Tess, who left the old coins on the doorstep each Friday afternoon, just at the end of the working week.

  For her ten bob or, in new money, less than two euros a week, Tess had the entire basement of the house. It consisted of a two-bedroom flat, which although it hadn’t been modernised, was very generous by today’s rental proportions in the city. A separate entrance squeezed within a small add-on porch just left of the impressive granite steps to Amanda’s imposing front door. The judge held firm when Richard went back with the second case to increase the rent. Amanda knew there was no repairing the damage the courts had wreaked on what should have been a neighbourly relationship.

  Still, Amanda adored Swift Square; it was one of only five intact Georgian squares dotted about Dublin. Sometimes, when the square was silent, she loved to stand on the doorstep and look about. Four storeys of preserved history surrounded them on all sides. Each building had a unique history of its own, and yet the fact that they stood shoulder to shoulder for almost three hundred years connected them in an enduring way that added so much to the square that was greater than the sum of all its parts. At its heart, the garden she had set her sights on when she first arrived. It had been a labour of love and at times back-breaking work, but she and a fiery old Italian called Antonio had undertaken a complete restoration of the shared garden. It was worth it. Now, on any given day, it was dotted with flowering shrubs each blooming and giving way for the next colour of the season.

  For the last month, standing taller and prouder than any other time of the year, they had decorated the huge conifer that stood in the northernmost point. The decorating had become a square tradition. Some of Amanda’s happiest memories with Casper and Robyn were around the dressing of that tree. It dripped with glinting sepia white lights and oversized wooden trinkets depicting the twelve days of Christmas rising up its furry branches to a superb silvery star on top.

  In the centre of the garden, there was ample space for kids to kick about a ball or throw Frisbees on a summer’s day. There were plenty of dark-stained garden chairs for tired au pairs or gossiping young mothers to watch their little darlings as they played. They kept it locked at night, but even now, looking across at the light frosty haze gathered about it, she felt proud.

  The square was home mainly to smart offices these days, but there were a handful of private homes and quite a few basement flats too. Not that Amanda knew all the renters by name, but everyone smiled and acknowledged each other. She felt it was important, so the square held onto that small town feeling that Celtic tiger greed and overzealous development had sucked out of the big city.

  Amanda cleared her throat as though she might be getting ready to say something important to the emptiness before her Perhaps she could say something, about the washing. Amanda peered towards the little flat. The windows at ground level opposite, she knew, were high within the flat. She took a step towards them, gingerly; it was so hard to know what to do, most of the time. If only Richard hadn’t insisted on having the court case.

  Amanda stood for a moment; perhaps she could get someone in to put up a rotary line in a small corner of the garden. Of course, she’d have to say it to Richard, and really, she already knew what he’d think of that idea.

  She wouldn’t do it, of course. Not just because she couldn’t listen to Richard’s tirade. No. Rather, she wouldn’t do it, because she knew, that letting Tess into the garden was just giving her another opportunity to bleed her dislike of them even further into their lives. The truth was that she was in the slow lane if it came to a game of tit for tat. Tess Cuffe had all the time in the world to plan a tactical campaign to drive Amanda to sheer distraction, whereas Amanda was a busy woman. She had coffee to drink, lunches to attend, committees to organise, magazines to read, hairdressing appointments and, of course, a husband and family to keep happy.

  She was just turning towards the steps to her front door when she heard the porch door open in the basement flat opposite. The sound of it splintered a sneer behind her.

  ‘Measuring up for curtains, are you?’ Tess Cuffe cackled as she fingered the washing on her line. She looked towards the grey sky and sighed, as though confirming what she already knew – it was not a day for drying clothes outside. ‘Ah, sure, that’s lovely for you.’

  ‘No, of course not, I was just…’ Amanda didn’t look at the woman, eye contact always led to more wrath, but she couldn’t help noticing a hard plaster on her hand. If it was anyone but Tess Cuffe, she would have enquired what had happened, but with Tess, such concern could go either way. Honestly, it was more likely to go the wrong way.

  ‘Well, you better put your measuring tape away for a while yet.’ She pulled the belt of her unfashionable coat tighter around her middle – everything about Tess seemed bitter to Amanda, from the way her mouth turned sourly down, to her bitten voice; she was irritated by a life she chose only to drift through. Tess was probably pretty, once. She still had the features to whisper that she might have been a stunner in her day. She was tall and graceful and if her anger pushed aside a sunny nature, it couldn’t hide the striking colour of her eyes.

  ‘I had no intention of…’ Amanda cast her eyes about the square uncertainly. The last thing she wanted was to have Tess Cuffe scorning at her again; you never knew quite what she was thinking of you. Perhaps that was the most unsettling thing of all. They’d lived as neighbours for over two decades and Amanda knew so little of this proud and private spinster who still managed to get the better of them, even with all that money could buy on their sides.

  ‘Not content with taking a poor old woman to court, now you’re just going to have to wait for me to die, I suppose,’ Tess sighed in mock resignation; she enjoyed making Amanda squirm, that much was certain.

  ‘Look here,’ Amanda straightened up to her full half-pint size, her voice rising an octave higher than she promised herself it would. ‘I’ll have you know…’ she was eyeballing her now, but of course, there was nothing she could say. Sometimes, Amanda wondered if they could roll back time and start again. Could doing things differently have made things any better? Of course, she’d never mention that to another living soul, it was too late now. She was never going to say that the court case was Richard’s idea, or that she would quite happily have let things lie after they had offered to buy her out. She had a feeling Tess would see her wifely support as just more evidence of her not having a brain or backbone of her own. In that way, when Amanda thought about it, they were total opposites – Tess had enough backbone for both of them and plenty to spare. Amanda often wondered if being a good wife always meant surrendering to your husband’s wishes, but then she was very lucky with Richard, because he really did know best. And, that was it, there was no point having an argument with Tess Cuffe, because, Amanda knew she wouldn’t win. Instead, she turned on her heel and left the woman standing there with her infuriating knowing eyes mocking everything about Amanda. At least in her exquisite, immaculate home, she could pretend Tess Cuff did not exist and her world was just perfect.

  Chapter 2

  December 31 – Wednesday

  ‘It’s just a scrape, that’s all.’ Tess hated that her voice sounded so small here. It was the machines of course, buzzing, humming and occasionally beeping, eating up the static silence of her little cubicle. The A&E at St. Mel’s city hospital was hushed, ready for impending invasion by the Dublin City revellers, wounded in various, often-unaccountable ways for the sake of auld lang syne.

  It was New Year’s Eve and this was not where she planned to spend it; not that she had any plan at all. It was a long time since Tess had anywhere she wanted to be for New Year’s, Christmas, or indeed her birthday. These days she told herself it suited her, but she was too wise not to remember what it was like to be part of something more.

  Tess eyeballed the doctor. He was young, maybe a bit of a smart-arse, but she put him in his place when he mispronounced her name and again when he stumbled over her prescription. ‘I’m going home
now. Either stitch me up, or give me a needle and I’ll do it myself.’ She swung her legs as smoothly as she could off the trolley that they had allocated to her almost three hours earlier. ‘For goodness sake, you’ll have all sorts in here soon.’

  It was fuss over nothing. So, there was a bit of blood, but nothing broken on this occasion. Tess had tripped, that was all there was to it. A bloody cat wandering through her legs in the dark. It could happen to anyone. Of course, the fact that she had a broken wrist made her look as though she was always in the wars. The broken wrist had occurred just over a month before, but she had been sensible, had the X-ray, got the bandage and gone on her not so merry way. She blamed the damned heavy cast for throwing her off balance. It had made her feel a little light-headed. It had been dark and the last thing she’d expected was to have a cat in her little porch. That was how she’d ended up in here again. For the second time in the same emergency ward; same flipping cat, only this time when she fell she managed to land against the front door and shattered every last piece of glass in the long thin side panel. Nothing broken, this time, but there was plenty of blood and, Tess knew, you couldn’t be too careful with old glass. She’d called the bugger every name under the sun; if she got her hands on him there was no telling what she might have done to him. In the ambulance, she’d groaned at her own stupidity and the zealous EMT began to check for everything from aneurism to zinc deficiency. She cursed under her breath, she was just a stupid old woman and there was no cure in this hospital for that particular condition.