Together Forever

by Siân O'Gorman

  Her head shook, no. No, everything is not all right.

  ‘Breathe, that’s it. Come on. Keep going.’ I could feel her back rise and fall, juddery and shuddery, jagged, tortured breathing. ‘It’s all right.’ Her heart was jumping around, I could feel it through her T-shirt, beads of sweat around her hairline, her breathing still short and panicky. And then she lifted her tear-streaked face, her eyes watery and bloodshot.

  ‘Mum…’ she began to cry. ‘It was so scary… I thought… I thought…’

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ I soothed and shushed her, finding a rhythm to my voice, low and hypnotic while I could feel her breathing become calmer and more regular. ‘That’s it, that’s right…’

  Eventually, she pulled away and lifted her face. ‘It hurts,’ she said.

  ‘What does?’ I said, scanning my beautiful girl’s face and smoothing her hair, tucking strands behind her ear, her skin was hot.

  ‘Everything. My chest. My whole body. And inside.’

  ‘You’re going to be all right, okay? I’m here now.’ My mind was working overtime, making plans for the next five minutes, thinking further ahead and trying to decide if sitting her exams was a good idea, could/ should she resit next year? Maybe I should give up my job and just be here. I’d been so selfish going out to work while she was struggling. Why hadn’t I done anything before?

  ‘It’s like a real thing,’ she said. ‘Everything inside is real.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Everything I think becomes real.’ She looked at me, willing me to understand.

  ‘Sweetheart…’

  Before

  Red and I swimming in the Forty foot, laughing. The sun overhead, one of those rare perfect summer days. Him swimming over to me and kissing me. ‘I love you, Tabitha Thomas,’ he said, ‘and I will love you forever.’

  *

  ‘Rosie, listen to me. Maybe you should think about not doing your exams. Take a year off, you know, a breather.’

  ‘No way…’ there were tears in her eyes again. ‘I have to. You’re making a big deal out of it. Please? Anyway…’ But immediately tears began running down Rosie’s face. ‘I don’t know what to do… I can’t not do my exams. Nobody drops out.’

  ‘Ro…’ I said, gently, ‘what triggers it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘it can happen anywhere.’ She stopped for a moment and was still, as though she was summoning up something deep inside, as though she was drawing on a reserve of strength of inner power, I didn’t know. ‘I’ve just got to eat better and sleep better.’

  She was working so hard. Always in her bedroom. She had stopped going out, meeting her friends. Anxiety was affecting teenage girls, I knew that. But for some reason, I thought that Rosie was immune. She was clever and confident. She had always sailed through life, always popular, always successful. She was on the hockey team, the school debating team, the drama society. Parents’ evenings had always been a joy; a fifteen-minute chat about how lovely my daughter was. She had been Mary, for God’s sake, in the school nativity play not once but twice. I had searched online for information; it all said the same. She needed help and support, she needed to take the pressure off, and she needed to stop trying to be perfect.

  *

  The next day, there was a knock on the front door. Red was standing there.

  ‘I hope I’m not intruding on a Sunday morning,’ he said. ‘But I’ve bought a book for Rosie. I was just going to leave it on the doorstep and then I thought I’d just try once…’ He looked at me. ‘I hope you don’t mind…’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘It’s very good of you.

  ‘Hello.’ Rosie had joined us.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, gently. ‘You must be Rosie.’

  ‘This is Red,’ I said, realising that Rosie had no idea who he was. For all she knew, he was some random man who was now in our hall. ‘He’s an old friend. I used to know him years ago. He’s now a teacher in the school. And he gave me a lift yesterday.’ She nodded again, only half taking it in.

  ‘Listen,’ he went on. ‘For what it’s worth, life does get better, as you grow up. It’s really hard being a teenager. Too many pressures being heaped on you. But the thing is, exams don’t matter. You think they do and everyone around you is telling you they are the most important things on the planet. But they’re not. They don’t mean anything, they don’t say anything about you and they are no guarantee of future success. The most important thing you can be is true to yourself and find something that excites you, something that makes you happy, that you cannot wait to do each day. That is true success. That’s all you have to do, find that thing and, when you do, grab on to it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Rosie tried to smile at him.

  He smiled back. ‘I’ll go now,’ he said. ‘Before I start expounding my other theories on life. I’ve got a great one on food and lots on politics and football. Lots on football.’

  She smiled again. ‘What’s the book?’

  He handed over a well-thumbed copy.

  ‘The Road Less Travelled. It’s just one of those books that reminds you that everything you do is okay…’

  Rosie was reading the blurb on the back. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll look after it.’ She looked at me, wonderingly, why wasn’t I inviting him in?

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I said. ‘We’re just having one.’

  Well, if it’s not too much trouble…’

  ‘Actually, Mum,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m going to go upstairs, to start working again.’

  He followed me into the kitchen. ‘How is she?’ he said. ‘Was she okay afterwards.’

  ‘I think so,’ I said. ‘She keeps telling me she’s all right but then this happens. I don’t know what to think. I wish she had better support. I think talking to someone might be a good thing to do. Or maybe not.’

  He nodded, understanding. ‘I don’t have a child,’ he said, ‘but I do remember what it was like to be at an age where you don’t feel you have any control over your environment. You are being forced into situations that are incredibly challenging but you didn’t choose them…’

  ‘Exams?’

  He nodded. ‘And everything really. When you are young, like Rosie is, or in your 20s, you aren’t really living life for yourself, not knowing what you truly want… you are just doing what everyone expects of you.’

  ‘I know… getting older is so much better.’

  ‘You know what you want,’ he said. ‘And even just knowing it, even if you can’t have it, is very liberating.’

  ‘How was the film?’ I said, changing the subject. Thinking of Red and Mary, I felt a bit put out by their friendship, childish of me, I knew, but I wanted to have that same easy relationship with Red. I wanted to be singing cheesy songs with him and going to the cinema. But I also wanted to be holding his hand and coming home with him. And that just wasn’t possible.

  ‘Dad says hello,’ he said.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Working on a new poem. Says he feels inspired by the protest.’

  ‘Oh God, really?’

  A key in the door. ‘Yoo-hoo! I’m home!’

  ‘That’s Michael,’ I said to Red. ‘I thought he was in Brussels.’

  ‘Mammy! Mammy?’

  Red was looking puzzled. ‘You?’

  I nodded, helplessly, as Michael walked straight into the kitchen. ‘Ah, there you are Mammy…’ And then he spotted Red who stood up and held out his hand.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Red Power, a friend of Tab’s.’

  ‘Michael Fogarty, MEP. And what brings you here on a Sunday morning?’

  ‘Just had to drop something off,’ he said.

  ‘Red works at the school,’ I explained. ‘What brings you home?’

  ‘I wanted to see Rosie,’ he said. ‘I’ve managed to organise an internship for the summer in Brussels. Now, these are not easy to acquire even for one’s offspring. You can imagine how many of the MEPs and the
thousands of people who work in the parliament want to organise them for their children, so I feel very lucky to have one for Rosie. This would be the making of her.’ He turned to Red. ‘She’s off to Trinity to do Law in September so a stint in Europe would be extremely beneficial. You see, she’ll eventually go into politics, just like her dear old dad.’ He smiled, happily, at us both.

  ‘Michael,’ I said, ‘we can talk about this later, ‘but Rosie is taking the summer off. She’s got a few things planned with her friends and I think she deserves a break.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ he said. ‘She’ll be fine. Stop fussing Mammy. What have I told you? Now, this is too good an opportunity to miss. Now, Richard…’ Michael’s famous never forgetting a name trick had failed him with Red, I noticed. Or probably deliberate dismissive tactic. ‘Do you like milk?’

  Red nodded. ‘Yes…’

  ‘Drink it every day?’

  ‘In tea... coffee …’

  ‘But when was the last time you had a big glass of it?’

  ‘When I was about eight years old?’

  ‘Aha! You see?’ He looked up in triumph.

  Red was puzzled. ‘You see what?’

  ‘It’s just a theory I’m working on… why masculinity, in fact, is in crisis.’

  ‘It is? It seems quite healthy to me,’ said Red.

  ‘No, it’s in crisis,’ said Michael definitely. ‘All the big thinkers are saying it. And I have developed a little theory which suggests that the crisis began when we stopped drinking milk.’

  ‘Right…’ Red looked utterly bewildered. ‘I don’t think milk has anything to do with anything…’

  ‘How can you say such a thing?’ said Michael. ‘Vitamins, minerals, protein… our country is built on the back of dairy cows… if we drank milk, Ireland would be an economic powerhouse… and that’s my plan. More milk, more money, more milk, more masculinity.’

  ‘Catchy.’

  Michael ignored me. ‘So what do you think, Richard?’

  ‘I will have to think about it,’ said Red. ‘I’m not sure yet.’ He turned to me. ‘I’d better go. Thanks for the tea, Tab. I’ll see you in school in the morning.’

  ‘And I’ll go up and tell Rosie the good news about the internship,’ said Michael. ‘She is one lucky girl.’

  *

  ‘Rosie says she doesn’t want it,’ said Michael when he came back downstairs. ‘She started crying.’ He looked utterly perplexed as though he had bestowed her wildest dream only for her to reject it.

  ‘She’s under a huge amount of pressure,’ I said. ‘She just needs a break over the summer. Hang out with her friends. Eat pizza. Go somewhere nice. Be a teenager.’

  ‘But she is a teenager.’

  ‘A proper teenager,’ I said. ‘Not one who is having to pretend to be an adult, wearing a suit and scurrying around after some MEP.’

  ‘It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,’ he said. ‘I worked every school holiday for Dad, learning the ropes. I used to do carbon copying, heading up to the train station for deliveries… it’s much easier these days. She’d only have to take notes and see what it’s like. One day, she’d be hooked. That’s all it would take.’

  ‘Maybe just leave it awhile,’ I said. ‘I should go and see how she is.’

  Wait a moment,’ he said. ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about.’

  ‘Oh yes? Did I leave the immersion on again?’

  He looked up, alarmed. ‘You haven’t, have you? All that hot water, being wasted.’

  ‘Michael, we don’t even have an immersion. It’s all on a timer.’

  ‘Don’t we? When did that happen?’

  ‘About three years ago, an electrician did it.’

  He looked visibly relieved. ‘Well, that’s okay then. Now…’ He looked at me, seriously. ‘You’re not going to like this… but after great consideration, and soul-searching, I have decided that…’

  Was Michael about to end our marriage, I wondered. What on earth would cause him to look so grave? I felt a feeling of admiration. He’d had the guts to do it. He was better than I was.

  ‘It’s Brussels. I am going to spend even more time there. I know I get to come home every few days or so but I have to make a bigger commitment to my role there. I know you miss me around the house, I know that it must be hard to do things such as source electricians and the like… I know it must be hard for the man of the house to be absent.’

  I wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Okay…’

  ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘I think so.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s the attitude. Sacrifices have to make for our country, for Europe. This is your little bit.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He smiled. ‘Some people stay at home and watch daytime television. Others waste their lives on picket lines and protests. Others play their part.’

  I pretended to be puzzled. ‘And which one are you?’

  ‘The latter! Mammy! Were you even listening?’

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘Will you sign this letter to the parents?’ said Mary, as she came into my office. I’d been staring out at the protestors and wouldn’t have been surprised if a few tents were erected and this went on for years. All the things we could do with the money kept flashing through my mind. The new surface for the playground, all the bits and pieces that the school needed. But my heart was saying no. But sometimes the head had to rule the heart. And I was, after all, the Head.

  ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’ said Mary, letter in hand. ‘But that Bridget last night said it might rain. But she also said it might not.’

  ‘That’s useful,’ I said, turning round from the window.

  ‘She said it was an Irish summer and we all knew what to expect. The unexpected. Whatever that means but she has a point. More a philosophy on life rather than a weather forecast, though…’ She passed me the letter. ‘So, will you sign it?’

  I nodded and took it from her. ‘Mary, what do you remember about school? Did you feel stressed at all?’

  ‘I hated it,’ she said. ‘For all their talk of love, the nuns didn’t show one ounce of compassion to any of us girls. It was a horrible place to be, and it made us girls suspicious of each other. They created an atmosphere where you didn’t know who you could trust. You didn’t know who was on your side. I used to take the bus into Cavan town every day. I was petrified that someone who knew Mammy would see me. But I couldn’t stop myself, I had to do something to prove to myself that the world was bigger than the school, than home, than Ballyjamesduff. Cavan town was as far as I got.’

  ‘Did you get caught?’

  ‘Of course I did! You couldn’t breathe without someone spotting you and telling on you. Mammy went, as expected, quite mad. Bulging eyes, the usual.’ She shrugged. ‘She thought I should join the Sisters of Charity. She was that worried for me. She thought if I was capable of deceiving her, my own mother, then she was terrified about how I’d get on when left to my own devices. She’s calmed down now.’ She laughed. ‘Only took her 30 years.’

  ‘And you headed off to London…’

  ‘Anywhere was better than the twitching curtains of home,’ she said. I knew I was gay back then. But wasn’t out, you know. London gave me the confidence. But everyone back home thought I’d gone off with a man. But he was gay too and so we both looked after each other,’ she said happily. ‘Australian, he was. Lovely fella. Martin from Alice Springs. He’d been working in Cavan Town. Took pity on me and was horrified when I told him about having to become a nun. Said he was heading off to London for a bit and told me I could come with him. Helped me find somewhere to stay and I found a job in a pub in Kentish Town. Time of my life it was. There were so many Irish girls, just like me, running away from home. We became quite the gang. Eight of us in all and all still in contact. Two of us turned out to be lesbians. What are the chances?’

  ‘And what happened to Martin?’

  ‘Back in Alice Springs. We still email at C
hristmas. I will go and see him one of these days…’ Her sentence drifted off. ‘Life is a series of unending possibilities, Tabitha, you just have to see it as that.’

  Was it though? I thought of Rosie, in the four walls of her bedroom. There wasn’t much she could do about it. This was the system and it decreed that you must break your arse studying for two years or so and then… then only then was life was a series of unending possibilities.

  I wondered what she was doing now. Working, I knew. In her room. I vowed, as soon as the exams were over I’d get her out of there. We’d go to Paris. Mary, I realised, was someone who was still adventurous, still a dreamer. I used to be like that, years ago. But along the way, I’d stopped dreaming. I felt something prickle inside me. I wanted some of that wanderlust for me too.

  ‘Tabitha?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s it like being a mother? Have you ever regretted it?’

  ‘Regretted it?’ I said. ‘Never. Not for one moment. I don’t think any mother regrets it. Why?’

  She shrugged. ‘Just wondering. It must be a worry having a little girl…’

  Mary was obviously thinking of her own mother and the grey hairs she’d acquired when Mary bunked off school and all her other adventures. No wonder she wanted her locked up in a nunnery. It would make life easier if all our daughters could be protected in such a way.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s hugely worrying and you never stop. It gets worse, if anything…’

  Mary had gone pale. ‘Are you all right?’ I said.

  ‘Quite all right, just haven’t much to eat yet… go on…’

  ‘Well, I was going to say, there is nothing which can bring you more pleasure than a daughter – or a son, I imagine. The deep, real joy of just watching them grow up… well, there’s nothing like it.’

  There was a knock on the office door.

  ‘Busy?’ It was Red. ‘I just wanted to talk to you about… oh, hello Mary,’ he said, smiling. ‘A Bout de Souffle this Saturday, you still on?’