‘So, let’s get going, shall we?’ said Bridget.
The camera went to a close shot of Bridget as she began vaguely gesturing to a blue screen map of the country, but instead of the usual cloud or rain symbols, Ireland was dotted with emojis. Donegal had a thumbs-down on top of it. Galway had a wavy hand. Cork a thumbs-up and Dublin a crying with laughter face.
‘So,’ she said, ‘you all will be wondering if ye’ll need jackets tomorrow.’ A jacket emoji popped up on screen. ‘Well, in Donegal, bring your umbrellas…’ Umbrella emoji. ‘…in Cork pack a jumper…’ Jumper. ‘And the sun screen.’ Sunglasses sun. Bridget laughed. ‘And in Dublin, it’s looking to be another gorgeous day!’ She smiled for the camera, her head slightly cocked, looking right down the lens. ‘So, that’s it for this evening,’ ended Bridget. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’ And she winked.
*
By 7.30 p.m., Clodagh was on my doorstep, still in TV make-up, looking like an impossibly glamorous, a hyperreal version of herself. I’d just come down from upstairs after taking Rosie up a cup of herbal tea, which was supposed to be relaxing. And a chocolate biscuit. I suspected that they would count each other out, but Rosie had looked quite pleased with both offerings. ‘You didn’t tell me?’ I knew exactly what she was referring to. Red. We’d all been friends at college.
‘I’ve just run into him. In the newsagents. I almost died. He recognised me, despite the fact I have my TV face on. It took me ages to realise who it was. “Red Power,” I said. “I thought you were dead.”’
‘Well, he’s not,’ I said breezily. ‘And he’s working in my school.’ Just reminding myself of it made it seem strange. As though a unicorn had taken up residence in the garden. ‘Are you coming in or just standing there on the doorstep.’
‘I’m coming in,’ she said, following me into the kitchen. ‘You need to tell me everything. For a moment I thought that perhaps he was one of my farmer fans. Come to stalk me.’ She sat down at the table and looked at me. ‘Jesus Christ, Tab. How could you have not told me? How are you coping? Are you all right? Have you talked?’
‘He only came in today. Starting on Monday…’
‘God, that must be weird. Is it weird? I mean, on a scale of one to ten, how weird is it?’
‘Eleven.’
‘You should have told him about it years ago,’ she said. ‘You should have explained properly. I always said it. And then it wouldn’t be weird. It might be nice. Meeting an old boyfriend. Reminisce gently, laugh a little and then move on, slightly nostalgic for the old days but relieved that you didn’t end up together.’
‘Will you stop projecting? That happened to you, didn’t it? Which one was it?’
‘Kevin Higgins,’ she admitted. ‘Met him last week. He should never have carried on playing rugby. His nose has been broken so many times, it’s like he’s had a potato transplanted on his face.’
‘Clodes. Red and I are slightly different to you and Kev.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Nothing. He’s only with us until the end of term and then he goes. Wherever. It’s a stop gap. It’s all fine. Don’t panic. Anyway, it was all such a long time ago, wasn’t it…? And I have Rosie now to worry about. And Michael.’ Even though I hadn’t seen him all week.
‘Since when have you worried about Michael?’
‘Can we change the subject?’ I said. ‘What about Bridget… she’s a breath of fresh air.’
Clodagh rolled her eyes. ‘That’s the party line, anyway,’ she said, gloomily. ‘Breath of fresh fecking air. Ten years I’ve been presenting that programme. Ten years! There was a text surge, whatever that is. Twitter set itself on fire. I mean, we’ve had no streakers, no protestors, and no on-air nervous breakdown. Apart from my imminent one. Nothing. Until this. A mad woman doing the weather. She’s like Dana’s deranged lunatic aunt on some kind of sex drug.’
‘She’ll certainly get people talking,’ I said, getting up to fill the kettle. ‘Although I imagine that’s entirely the point.’
‘I mean, for feck’s sake,’ Clodagh went on, adrenaline taking longer than normal to dissipate. ‘Did you see how she was deliberately upstaging me? Those shoes. I am surprised that she was able to walk in them.’
‘You sound like her mother.’
‘Her mother! She was sitting beside the camera, the entire time. She’s her agent. Apparently, Bridget’s an Irish dancer, toured the world with Riverdance…’
‘I knew it!’
‘Knew what?’
‘She looks like a Riverdancer, that’s all.’
Chapter Six
Celia, my mother-in-law, was very much a hostess in the old-school style. She’d been giving dos and dinners since she and Michael Sr were newlyweds and he was an up-and-coming politician. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the pineapple and cheese on sticks or the mushroom vol-au-vents, but she had rung yesterday to make sure we were all still coming and checking that Rosie would be there and that Michael had arrived back from Brussels and he wouldn’t be dashing off for some vote or problem, like he always did.
‘I know politicians,’ she reminded me. ‘I know what they are like. Michael Sr was exactly the same. He was married to his constituents first and Michael Jr and I second. Oh, I know I go on about the old days,’ she said, ‘but I think you met a better class of person back then. People showed respect to Michael Sr. Tipping hats, calling him sir. Listening to what he had to say. I heard Michael Jr on the radio this morning and I was shocked to hear how disgracefully he was treated. The interviewer – if you can call him that – the interrupter, we shall say, well the interrupter just went on and on, not giving Michael a chance to talk about the Standards in Public Life directive. Which I must say, is a simply wonderful idea. If my Michael can’t bring a bit of order to Europe, which is going to the dogs, then I don’t know who can. You will be here for 2 p.m., won’t you? Now, don’t be late. I know timekeeping isn’t your strong point, Tabitha.’ She sighed as though it was only one in a long list of shortcomings. ‘But please make an exception for my sake, will you. People want to see Michael, you know.’ And she was gone.
My timekeeping wasn’t what I would call an issue, in fact it was me who was standing in the hall today at 1.40 p.m. waiting for Rosie and Michael and looking at the framed photograph of me, Rosaleen and Nora on the hall table. Taken on a long ago trip to West Cork when I was Rosie’s age and we’re standing in front of Rosaleen’s cherry tree in the garden of her family home outside Schull. The tree was her secret spot to get away from the world, she used to tell us, and there was a branch wide enough for her to crawl along and she’d look up into this cherry blossom world. Rosie and Rosaleen would have really liked each other, I thought, not for the first time. They would have got on so well. Rosaleen with her no-nonsense nurturing and Rosie with her lovely sense of humour. Well, her sense of humour that seemed to have disappeared.
‘Rosie,’ I called up the stairs, ‘are you ready?’ There was no answer. ‘Rosie!’ I called again. ‘Come on!’
Michael had been in town all morning working – wearing what he deemed his casual clothes, of which there was little discernible difference from his weekday clothes – it was just a suit without a tie.
‘Cufflinks!’ said Michael. ‘I need my cufflinks. You know the ones, my EU flags. People will want to see them.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘Everyone’s always so interested in what goes on in Brussels. It’s all anyone wants to talk about. Mammy’s made me promise to talk to everyone. I’d better stay off the champers just in case I get some policy wrong and it’s in all the papers!’ He looked delighted at the thought of being mobbed by Celia’s friends, all panting for the ins and outs of the European Parliament. ‘Now, I need those cufflinks. People will expect them.’
A knock on the front door. ‘Lucy!’ Michael said, swinging open the door. ‘Perfectly on time, as always. It’s… exactly… seventeen minutes to two. Just as you said… to the dot!’
‘I hope y
ou don’t mind, Tabitha,’ she said, slightly embarrassed.
‘Not at all, Lucy,’ I said, ‘the more the merrier.’ I didn’t care if Noel and Liam Gallagher came along and had a proper fist-fight in the middle of the living room rug, as long as they made the afternoon slip by faster.
‘Mammy has been in such a twizzle about the party,’ said Michael, ‘that she has been on the phone to me and to Lucy about it for weeks. The least Lucy deserves is an invitation.’
‘Surely the least she deserves is a day off?’ I said.
‘What was that?’
‘Nothing.
‘Well, I bought her something,’ said Lucy. ‘I hope she’ll like it.’ She dragged a large present from outside which was beautifully wrapped in flowery paper and adorned with a giant pink bow. ‘It’s a crystal carriage clock. But Mary said that crystal carriage clocks are straight out of the 1970s.’ She looked slightly crest-fallen.
‘Lucy, thinking about Celia’s décor and the food she serves, I am confident the 1970s is her favourite decade.’ I hoped Lucy was going to be luckier buying presents for Celia than I had been over the years. Every posh scented candle, silk scarf, cashmere cardigan, designer objet, every single trinket I had ever bought her was usually re-gifted to someone else. One year, she even re-gifted me a rather nice blue cardigan the following Christmas. Hopefully Waterford crystal would be the breakthrough present.
‘I do hope so!’ said Lucy. ‘Mary’s always going to Ikea these days, buying trendy bits and bobs. But some people still like the more traditional things. My Mammy does for one. And…’ she dropped her voice. ‘It’s a second. It’s has a flaw, apparently, in the crystal. But you’d never know. Cost half what it should. I do like a bargain and it’s unnoticeable.’
‘She’ll love it,’ I said. ‘And you don’t have to tell her it’s a second.’
‘Have you seen my cufflinks?’ said Michael to Lucy. ‘I had them this week and now…’ He began patting himself down in an increasingly frenzied way. ‘The ones with the EU flag on. My special ones…’
‘Inner pocket of your Louis Copeland?’ she said immediately. ‘You had them on Thursday when we had the SIPL meeting. With your blue shirt with the thin stripe.’
‘Smart girl!’ he said, charging up the stairs, meeting Rosie on the way down.
‘At last!’ I said. ‘Come on, sweetheart, what on earth have you been doing up there?’ But she looked pale and washed out. ‘Are you okay? Are you feeling all right?’
‘Yeah,’ she said, huffily. ‘Can you please stop going on?’
‘Stop your fussing, Mammy,’ said Michael, drumming down the stairs, twisting in his cufflinks. ‘Fuss, fuss, fuss!’
*
When I met Michael, for some reason, intentionally or not, he made me laugh. He was earnest and sweet. And well-meaning. And I admired him. A young man standing up for what he believed in and I’d been brought up to value principles and conviction and, although he wasn’t like Nora who thought nothing of camping out on a pavement to make a point, in his own way, he was putting himself out there. And more than anything, I wanted to have a baby.
Michael was equally in a hurry to settle down because for a man with serious political ambitions, a wife was an entirely necessary appendage. We weren’t much of a success as a couple, even before Rosie arrived, but I hoped I had guaranteed Rosie extra years of happiness by giving her what I had thought was a proper family. But maybe it was perfectly okay to have two parents who were flatmates rather than passionate teammates. I wanted Rosie to have what I didn’t. A Dad. A Father. Someone who would love her completely and utterly. I wanted her life to be wonderful. I had thought by staying with Michael, I couldn’t fail. But now as I sat in the ministerial car beside my silent daughter, listening to my husband and his secretary chat about meetings and strategies – and all about the powers of milk – as if I wasn’t there, I was beginning to wonder. Had it really been the best thing?
*
Michael had grown up in the house but for some reason – which I had never quite fathomed – he was never given a key and the four of us, clutching our gifts, smiles plastered to face, stood outside, waiting for Celia.
But it was Imelda Goggins, Celia’s best pal, who let us in. School friends and maids of honour at each other’s weddings, Celia and Imelda had lived in each other’s pockets for the last half a century.
‘Michael! How are you?’ Imelda pressed her big, powdery face, close to his, kissing him hard on the cheek. ‘Oh now, look what I’ve done.’ She wiped her lipstick off his face with her thumb. ‘There,’ she pronounced. ‘Good as new. Now, who do I hand him back to?’ She looked enquiringly at me and then at Lucy. ‘The wife or the secretary? Who is the power behind the throne? Well, that’s what it was like with my Frank. His secretary, long dead now – good riddance – was a battle axe. Wouldn’t allow him to do any actual work, waved him off to the golf course every day so she could just get on with things. I was petrified to ring the office for anything because she was always so busy. Frank was simply terrified of her. Just said, yes Enid. No Enid. Is it time for lunch yet? He got all the credit, though.’ She then mouthed the next sentence, making no sound at all. ‘And the salary.’
And just in time, there was Celia, elbow-barging Imelda out of the way, in a puff of Chanel No 5 and a haze of lilac, arms outstretched. She and Michael embraced in their curiously unaffectionate way, never quite making enough bodily contact for the hug to mean anything.
‘And Rosie, darling…’ And now it was my turn to be elbowed out of the way as she grabbed her granddaughter and briefly embraced her. ‘How are you getting on, hmmm? Working hard? Hmmm? No hard work, no Trinity!’
Rosie opened her mouth to speak but Celia ploughed on.
‘Tabitha…’ She embraced me, stiffly, entirely without warmth. It was like trying to hug a lamppost. ‘You are looking… your usual self. Gardening again?’
‘No…’ For a moment, I wondered what she meant. ‘No, well I was last week… oh…’ And then I realised that I was wearing my tweed jacket, which I had thought quite stylish.
‘And Lucy,’ she said, smoothly turning her attention to Lucy. ‘You look marvellous. Such a pretty colour on you.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lucy, looking a little apologetically at me as the recipient of such obvious favouritism.
‘Now… I can see you have your hands full… Imelda, maybe you can help everyone with their packages?’ That was our signal to hand them over.
‘Happy birthday, Celia.’ I passed her the handmade and very expensive leather gloves I had bought from Michael, Rosie and me.
‘Well, let’s see what this is…’ She pulled off the ribbon, opened the slim box and peeled open the tissue. ‘Gloves?’
‘Italian leather,’ I said. ‘Feel them.’ I’d tried them on in the shop and they felt beautiful to wear. But it looked like I’d failed again.
‘Gloves are what my mother always gave the staff for Christmas,’ she said, nose wrinkling as she handed the box to Imelda.
Michael bristled beside me. ‘But grandmother didn’t have staff,’ he said. ‘She had a cleaning lady if that is what you are referring to?’
It was now all down to Lucy and her Waterford crystal. ‘I have a little something,’ said Lucy, passing the box to Celia. ‘Happy birthday.’
‘Oh you darling girl,’ she said to Lucy. ‘You shouldn’t have.’
She really shouldn’t have, I thought. But we waited, breath-bated, to see if this was the present which would make Celia happy. She handed the torn paper to Imelda and lifted up the box. ‘Waterford Crystal?’ she said curiously. ‘A carriage clock?’ We all waited to hear the result. It was like waiting for Simon Cowell to give his verdict. She pulled it out of the box, examining it with the eye of an expert on the Antiques Roadshow. ‘What’s this?’ she said. ‘A flaw. A scratch, here at the bottom.’ We all tried to see what she was pointing at. ‘Oh my poor dear, they’ve sold you a flawed piece of crystal. You’ll have to t
ake it back.’ She passed it to Lucy who was green around the gills. Another failure. Michael gave Lucy a sympathetic look.
‘Now, come along. Quickly. My other guests were told to be here for 1.45pm… I always give an early off when I’m giving a little gathering. Little tip for you there Lucy when hosting. Now give me your arm, and you Rosie. And Michael, you must talk to everyone. They’re all been simply desperate to talk to you about Europe. So many questions! I said I can’t possibly answer them all, but Michael will be only too pleased. There’s a few policy points that need clarifying, there’s the free-range pigs bill. And also, we need to hear all about SIPL… it’s such a wonderful initiative. And you mentioned milk on the radio the other morning. The interviewer on Morning Ireland was positively cruel not to let you speak. I wrote to the director general. He knows who I am and I told him exactly what I thought about that excuse for a journalist. There are just no standards left anywhere. In public or private life.’
Chapter Seven
The drama and worry were such that I’d actually forgotten that Red was starting on the Monday morning but as I drove towards school, I saw him, ahead on the pavement, it all came back to me. Red was starting today.
I had drawn level with him and, for a moment, my foot hovered on the accelerator pedal. I could just drive off, pretend not to have seen him. And shaken these feelings out of me. Maybe I was feeling unsettled because of Rosie. I was worried, that was all. And my period was probably on its way. I just needed a bar of Dairy Milk and all would be well. Rosie would be okay. She was a bright, capable girl. Just sensitive. And what lovely, young seventeen-year-old wasn’t? But as I glanced at him, he looked up and saw me, hand lifted in acknowledgment and I had no choice but to stop. Heart pumping, I rolled down the window and arranged my face into pleasant neutrality.
‘No car?’ I called out.
He shook his head. ‘Not this morning, no,’ he said, leaning into the window, smiling. ‘The walk is doing me good.’
Together Forever Page 5
