by Faith Hogan
‘So, you live on your own, Mrs, ah, Miss… Tess?’
‘On my own, of course I…’ then it dawned on her. They were treating her as if she was in shock, a head injury. They would never let her home if they thought she was on her own. It was the New Year, even if she wasn’t inundated with social invitations, she was damned if she was spending it in this place. ‘Of course, I don’t, my… husband will be so worried about me, so will you let me go home now?’ There was never a husband, but there might have been, once, long ago – but then he’d married Nancy and that was that.
‘Ah, Tess.’ A vaguely familiar-looking older man arrived, clipboard in hand. ‘You won’t remember me, Dr Kilker, I treated you last time round.’ He smirked at the hard plaster on her wrist. She disliked him instantly, had a feeling he knew something she didn’t and that just got up her nose. ‘So, you’ve been in the wars again? What was it this time, kissing the ground instead of kicking it?’ He moved closer to her, inspected the wound. He smelled of garlic mixed with a hint of tobacco, and aftershave clinging to survive on a ten-hour hospital shift, it drifted from him being so close.
‘No, for your information, I was the victim of an intruder,’ Tess snapped.
‘Half a dozen stitches should see you straight.’ He raised a sceptical eyebrow.
‘Finally,’ Tess grunted towards the younger doctor.
‘Now, be a good girl and sit still while I put it right.’ Dr Kilker silenced her while he tacked up the wound.
It was infuriating to be spoken to as if she were a child.
‘How did you really manage it, Tess?’ He asked as he stood back to admire his neat stitches.
‘There was a flipping cat in a dark porch; it could happen to the Pope himself.’
‘I suppose it could, but then, he’s not wearing a cast, is he?’ he said lightly. ‘No dizziness or blackouts? Nothing odd or strange going on that we should hear about?’
‘No, nothing like that.’ Tess glared at him. She wasn’t stupid. She knew when to see a doctor. ‘Maybe just a little too much seasonal cheer for my own good.’ She had just had a small nip before she went to lock up the flat for the night.
‘Hmm.’ From the shuffling, it was obvious none of them could visualise a cheerful Tess, seasonal or otherwise. ‘Well, stay away from the brandy bottle until those painkillers wear off.’ He handed her a prescription. ‘I’ll get a few of these to bring home with you, tide you over for a few days, okay?’ He counted out a half dozen small white tablets, placed them in a blue container then squinted while he scribbled some illegible instructions on the label. When he finished, he looked at her oddly over reading glasses that perhaps might be fashionable on someone decades younger.
‘Oh, I won’t need any of those,’ Tess said and then felt the blood rush from her head as she sat forward. ‘On second thoughts.’ She took the pills and folded the prescription into her bag.
‘There’s definitely someone to take care of you?’ Dr Kilker kept his eyes on the notes he was making to her records. ‘You’ll need to rest well for a day or two, let those stitches knit.’
‘Of course I have people to look after me, I’ll be tucked up in bed as soon as I get home and then…’ She left the words hanging. The truth was that some nights, she settled down on the old sofa in her little flat. Somehow, making the effort of getting ready for bed seemed to be beyond her too often lately. It was as though she was giving in that another day was over, same as the last, same as the next, until one day there would be no more.
One of the nurses suggested diplomatically that older women could be even more exhausted while convalescing; Tess just nodded wordlessly at her. Convalescing was for other people, not for Tess.
‘And then, there’s the neighbours,’ she said as if there was a chance she’d let that snooty wagon from upstairs over her threshold even if Amanda did decide to come check that she was still alive.
‘Retired yet?’ He tapped the pen on her file; she presumed he was looking at her age.
‘Not yet, shouldn’t you be thinking about it too?’ she said acerbically. Just because he was a doctor did not mean he could take liberties.
‘Oh, believe me, I think about it all the time.’ He looked around the hectic emergency ward and she caught a weary sound to his words. ‘Can’t come soon enough.’
‘Well for some,’ she said. ‘They’re still putting the finishing touches on my villa in Spain, if you want to know the truth of it,’ she shook her head. ‘Oh, yes, you’d be surprised at how us old girls plan to live it up when we retire, Dr Kilker.’
‘Well, you have to call a halt sometime.’ He smiled wryly, before beckoning to an ambulance driver who was just folding up a wheelchair. ‘Ted, are you heading back across town now?’
‘Yep, no calls, just a nice cup of tea back at the base.’ He smiled sadly. Perhaps, without the action of the job, it would be a long and boring night with far too much tea.
‘Any chance you’d give Tess a lift,’ he looked at her notes again, ‘to Swift Square?’ He raised an eyebrow, as though he was familiar with the place, then smiled sadly when he caught her eye.
‘Sure.’ Ted put out a hand to steady her before she got to her feet.
‘I’m well able to walk, young man.’ Tess saw Dr Kilker smile as she shrugged off the help. The distraction caught her off balance and in what felt like a slow-motion exaggerated dance move she ended up falling clumsily on her bottom.
‘Ah, Tess, I’m afraid you’re staying here for the night.’ The words floated about over her head; she blamed the painkillers this time round.
*
The city bells woke her at midnight. New Year’s Eve. Well, this was a first. She’d never spent it in hospital before. Looking on the bright side, it turned out, she was not alone for the ringing in of the new, even if her company were all old biddies snoring loudly and unaware that they had made it into the next year, albeit, if from the sounds of some of them, it could be their last.
Tess yanked herself up higher in the bed. She looked out across the Dublin rooftops. It was surreal to see the city so quiet, and as if on cue, a loud bang heralded the start of a twenty minute fireworks’ display. She had never watched the festivities before. Usually, Tess made sure she was fast asleep before people could get too nostalgic. Anyway, she was a morning person – liked to get a start at the day.
Now, watching each exploding colour bomb hit the inky sky, she regretted missing them over the years. They really were quite beautiful. Intoxicating.
She heard the thrum of modern loud music and the roars and claps from the city dwellers when the last golden burst faded into the smoky black night. Then, the oddest thing, she started to cry. This was not a raging upset, but more of a slow-releasing sadness at how her life had turned out. She was truly alone – not a friend to call on her over the Christmas holidays. No one missed her for ten whole days. At the various offices around the city, she’d temped in on and off for the last few years, they hadn’t even sent a card or enquired how she was when she returned. Her wages just arrived in her bank account. Ten days she’d not turned up. The agency had just replaced her – and nobody had noticed anything different. She was an old woman now. She was only sixty-six, which was nothing these days. Women her age were winning marathons, running countries, and doing all sorts of marvellous things all over the world. She was younger than Meryl Streep for God’s sake. Tess knew, though, that those women were not like her. They had young hearts, souls that sang with love and joy. It was many years since Tess had known what it was to be moved by passion for something that filled her soul. These last few weeks, she realised that she was, to all extents, invisible – could it be that she had allowed herself to become sidelined in her own life? That seemed neither possible nor practical, and yet, it had become an overwhelming sense within her. No one noticed if she didn’t turn up, apart from the plants that she watered each day, because if she didn’t, she believed no one else would. She temped in offices throughout the heart of the bu
siness centre in Dublin. Tidied up the mess left behind by the bright young things that couldn’t quite manage to get their work completed. She found it mind-numbingly dull, of course, but she had shown up and for too many years to count, it was all she had to push her into each new day.
In this moment, Tess, all alone in the world, knew that it had been too long since she had loved. It was two score and more since she felt the kind of joy that she knew with certainty was still outside that window tonight.
What if it wasn’t too late to change things? She considered herself a brave and resilient woman; was she courageous enough to turn things around, if there was time? And how on earth would she go about it? It was time to take a good hard look at her life.
In the near silence of the hospital ward, the only punctuating sounds were easily drowned to quiet when Tess began to sit up and think. This unease, this gulf that had become her whole existence, wasn’t just about taking stock of herself, it was her health, her happiness. Could she honestly move forward if she didn’t first resolve the harm done in the past?
God, Tess shuddered. She couldn’t go back.
There was Nancy, the sister that she’d treasured. Her parents, long dead now, she never really said goodbye. And then, of course, there was Douglas, the man she had so prized, all those years ago. It was a love that cost too much in the end. Should she have let it steal her life away? That thought jolted her now, or was it the sound of some buzzer, muted and unending far off, letting nurses know that they were needed once again? Tess knew, with the certainty of time and sudden blinding clarity, that was what she’d done. She’d allowed life to slip through her fingers, just a little with each passing year, until the gossamers of time had pulled so finally away that it was almost too late to make anything of what was left.
How could someone who started with so much have ended up with so little in life? Tess had an uncomfortable feeling that learning the truth of this might be the only way to make a life that was worth something more than another decade of loneliness.
Tess knew with certainty, in this moment, surrounded by women who were much older than she was, they would give their false teeth to have another ten years before them. She should have that, and surely, if she had, then she just had to try to make things up?
Chapter 3
January 1 – Thursday
She shook her head; she hated parties, especially parties like this. She was an outsider and she wanted to go home. Amanda dodged a friend’s husband who was dancing a little too amorously with one of the new office juniors. Bankers, thank God her Richard was not like that! It was irrational, of course, this panic rising up inside her. Richard had booked a room for the night, planned it all out. It would be a great night, he assured her as he sauntered off to schmooze some corporate bigwig, and she hadn’t seen him since. She rang in the New Year, essentially alone, surrounded by people, none of whom mattered to her, nor, she suspected, she to them.
Her mind wandered home for most of the night, it was where she wanted to be on this last night of the year. She’d made muffins for the kids, well, kids? Casper and Robyn were sixteen and fourteen now, but they were kids to her. Before she left, she’d set out a midnight feast for them. She’d wondered, as she heard the ringing in of the New Year if they heard it also, or were they too submerged in whatever social media that pulled them ever further away from her to even notice. It seemed all wrong, to be standing on a terrace watching fireworks burst open the night sky; to be here surrounded by strangers, because essentially, that was what they were. Richard’s work colleagues, their friends. To Amanda’s mind, friends were people you counted on, not competitors you strove against. It was a long time since Amanda could call the people closest to her ‘friends’ in that old-fashioned sense.
She sighed, drained the champagne glass in her hand. It was still cool, which meant, she was probably drinking too fast. It would also account for the melancholy, wouldn’t it? On the vista ranged about below the roof terrace, Amanda looked across at St. Mel’s hospital, it seemed to shine ever brighter in the dancing brightness of the city fireworks display. Perhaps, she thought, the celebrations might be watched from there too, marking out the end of one year and the start of the new. For a moment, she imagined, not so much a line of starched and kindly nurses, but rather, some old biddy in a bed, watching this display. The notion stirred something in her, as if she’d forgotten some important detail, but there was nothing she could recollect, so she put it down to too much champagne and resolved to walk about the grounds.
Anyway, it was no good regretting coming here at this stage, she thought as she walked around the front of the hotel. It was the best in Dublin – five big shiny stars, the kind of place that would import yak’s milk from Angola if that were what you wanted in your tea. Surely, a taxi should be easy. She wanted to go home.
She turned on her ridiculously high heels and caught sight of herself in the polished glass opposite. For a second she didn’t recognise herself. She actually nodded towards the dumpy little woman, with absurd copper rouge hair piled too high on her head. She stood transfixed, once she realised it was her own reflection. She studied the woman staring back at her with her expensive clothes and too much make-up. Amanda King was under there, somewhere. Her breath caught in her throat, she had been lovely, once. Where was that girl she used to know? A petite, porcelain-skinned girl with blue eyes and golden brown hair – what had happened to her? When had she become this primped and preened middle-aged hag? Of course, the real question was why she was trying so hard to be someone that she knew deep down she wasn’t. Amanda wasn’t willing to ask herself that question, because all of a sudden, she knew that if she looked at her life honestly, the foundations were rotting beneath her. Everyone knew, a house could only stand for so long on bad foundations. At the same time, Amanda wasn’t sure what was wrong, apart from this deep-seated sense of dread that it was all about to start tumbling down around her. Maybe, if she held her breath, covered the cracks with expensive clothes, holidays and house makeovers, she might just make it to the finish line and everything would be fine.
‘Hello, miss, are you okay?’ She felt the steadying arm of the night porter at her back.
‘I’m fine, just a little…’ She looked into his concerned eyes. He was a short man, Asian, perhaps from the Philippines. ‘Too much…’ She fanned her face, felt that creeping heat travel towards her forehead, bringing with it a prickly rush of dread, she wanted to go home. She needed to get away from here, it was an irrational feeling of panic, but she would set out walking if she had to, just to make it back to her own house. ‘I want to go home,’ her voice sounded high-pitched, nervy even to herself. ‘I need to get home, my children, you see, there’s…’ then she realised, this man was not interested in Casper and Robyn. In all likelihood, he just wanted to make sure the sad middle-aged woman did not keel over on the hotel steps. ‘Can I get a taxi? Can you get a taxi to bring me home?’
‘Of course, Madam, I will organise a taxi for you. Will you sit inside? To wait?’ He put out his hand, gesturing for her to lead the way back into the hotel. ‘Do you need to tell someone that you’re leaving?’
‘Richard?’ she said his name as though it might steady her. ‘My husband. I’ll send him a text, there’s no need for him to leave. It’s a great party,’ she lied. She was regaining some of her composure now. The reflection opposite helped in some dreadful way to sober and straighten her up. There was no point in calling Richard away. He would assume she’d left the party and headed off to bed. She could text him later and let him know that all was well. She had a feeling he wouldn’t miss her for hours yet anyway. ‘I’ll just wait here, if that’s all right.’ She heard him scurrying back into the hotel to organise a car for her.
*
The taxi sped and it took only ten minutes to get home. The roads were clear. Amanda sat back and let the tired Christmas decorations wash over her. It seemed as if the twinkling lights had slowed down in preparation for their long
rest until the following Christmas. Already, in the shops, January sales posters were tired, welcomed first, but soon ignored by greedy bargain hunters, gluttonous for more things that would all too soon be cast aside for new season fabulousness. Of course, it didn’t make you happy, Amanda had known that before she married Richard. Tonight, she thought perhaps that everything had lost its sparkle just a little, was she getting too old for Christmas? It felt as though all of Dublin had gone home and decided to put a lock on December 31, to start a fresh new beginning tomorrow.
Amanda sank back even further in the cab to avoid catching glimpses of her reflection against the deserted streets. She had an odd sensation, as though suddenly she had come face-to-face with an ultimatum. As though, in that mirror image she saw everything about her life as it really was rather than how she pretended it was. Of course, she would wake tomorrow in her elegant townhouse, surrounded by her perfect family and they would settle into a new year and everything would go on as usual.
God, but here, in the anonymity of a Dublin taxi, that thought completely depressed her. What was she missing? Perhaps it was the change? It was time, after all.
She pulled out her phone, she would send Richard a text, explain that she had to leave, that she wasn’t feeling well. He wouldn’t mind too much, after all, it was his work do; she wasn’t even sure if he’d wanted her there to begin with. She’d only tagged along to stop the other wives from talking about her behind her back. She sent the text, quickly, then she realised, she hadn’t brought a key for the front door. The car keys were back at the hotel, in the room beside the minibar. She’d have to ring the house, make sure the kids hadn’t gone to bed yet so they could let her in.
‘Hello, Robyn,’ her daughter answered just as the second ring sounded. Robyn never missed a call.
‘Hi, Mum, is everything all right,’ her daughter shouted above the din of frenetic music, thumps and shouts of a teenage party on her daughter’s end of the line. Panic prickled Amanda’s skin, as though it was rolling over her, the champagne keeping it at bay, just for now. Her children should be tucked up in bed; they should be sleeping soundly in their grand Georgian townhouse on Swift Square.
