Together Forever

by Siân O'Gorman

  But somehow, now, life stretched out like a glittering and exciting carpet. Or like the ‘Billie Jean’ floor in the Michael Jackson video. Enticing and exciting. ‘And Lucy’s pregnant.’ And then I realised it wasn’t all going to be plain sailing, that I couldn’t afford to be giddy and excited. I still had to tell Red about my baby. Our baby.

  ‘Good grief.’

  I could do with a hug, I thought, as I stood to one side to let him go past me, his jacket brushing my hand. I could do with the biggest hug of my life. From you. I’d hold on and never let go.

  I pulled him by the arm, feeling his muscles beneath his shirt, into the kitchen. We bumped up against each other and there was a lightness, a giggling quality, a slight hysteria was infecting us.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, Mrs… Tabitha,’ said Lucy when we went into the kitchen, ‘but I made the tea. I haven’t had a decent one for two days. One thing I don’t like about Brussels. The water. You can bring your tea bags but it’s not the same.’.’

  ‘Michael, you remember Redmond Power.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Tabitha’s old friend.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Red. ‘I hope you don’t mind me calling at this time…’

  ‘Time of what?’ said Michael. ‘Time of me being a national laughing stock?’

  ‘No!’ said Lucy suddenly and passionately. ‘You’re not a laughing stock. You’re still the same Michael Fogarty you ever were: upstanding, proud and principled. That’s the Michael Fogarty you were, the Michael Fogarty you are and the Michael Fogarty you will be.’ She looked quite hot around the collar. Everyone needed a Lucy on their team. Finally, Michael had the life partner he deserved.

  I glanced at Red and he widened his eyes at this impassioned speech and I felt like I might laugh, from happiness, hysteria or knowing that Red ‘got me’, understood me.

  ‘Lucy, this is Red… a friend of mine… And Red, this is Michael’s…’ Lucy’s smile was rictus. ‘Michael’s girlfriend and mother of his unborn child.’ I turned to Lucy. ‘Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes…’ She hesitated. ‘I think so. Well, it’s factually correct, I suppose, but rather bald when you say it out loud.’

  ‘Good to meet you,’ said Red, shaking her hand. ‘I recognised you from the newspaper.’

  ‘Oh stop,’ said Lucy, blushing. ‘I’m am mortified. Mammy is furious. She says she can’t face Mass today because of all the talk. Expecting… when I’m not married!’

  Michael patted her on the shoulder, a look of resignation on his face as he realised his hours and hours of lovely sleep were about to be cut short.

  ‘Everything’s going to be all right, you just take care of yourself and that baby. Now,’ I said, ‘where are those Jaffa Cakes? Jaffa Cake, Red?’

  ‘Tea, everyone?’ said Lucy. ‘Michael?’

  ‘Would you make mine black?’ he said. ‘I think I’ve gone off milk.’

  And while Lucy and Michael were whispering together, Red held out his hand and touched mine and my smile turned into a goofy, giddy grin. Red, meanwhile, was looking as goofy and giddy as me. This is how it used to feel, I remembered, this is how we used to be.

  ‘Well,’ said Michael, ‘we’re going to hit the road. We’re going to stay in the flat in town. I’m going to take Rosie out for pizza tonight and we can talk about everything.’

  Michael hung back a little when I saw him and Lucy off at the front door. This was my husband leaving me. Shouldn’t it be more dramatic, a bit more EastEnders? Shouldn’t I be crying? Or at least hitting the vodka? Or him?

  ‘Thank you,’ said Michael. ‘Thanks for being so good about things… about everything.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘We’re all human. Anyway, it’s something of a relief, to be honest. We were never right for each other.’

  ‘Well, thank you for trying, anyway,’ he said.

  ‘We both tried,’ I said. ‘We did it for Rosie.’

  ‘A most noble cause,’ he said and reached towards me and hugged me awkwardly and stiffly. We hadn’t actually had such close physical contact in years, not since the last by-election and he was so overexcited he hugged all of us standing there at two a.m. I thought I was going to drop with tiredness, but he and Lucy were on cloud nine. Thinking back, I should have twigged something was up when he hugged all of us but not her. It was the classic putting people off the scent trick, but I was too tired that night to see it.

  ‘Goodbye Michael, and good luck with your Standards In Pubic Lice thing,’ I said. ‘I mean public life!’

  ‘I think that’s over,’ he said, sadly, looking not unlike a wounded lion, ‘along with my career. And the milk scheme will never be a runner now. I was so sure they would be ground-breaking. They were going to make my name in Europe.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’ll be known for adultery rather than public lice and milk. I think that is far more rock and roll, don’t you?’

  ‘Typical Tabitha answer,’ he said. ‘Everything amuses you.’

  ‘Michael, I am not amused. Not particularly. But it’s better to find humour in a situation like this, don’t you think?’

  ‘I suppose,’ he said gloomily.

  ‘Something tells me you’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘When are you going to talk to your mother?’

  ‘She’s already called me. Several times. And on Lucy’s phone. I’ll call her. But all courage seems to have left me on that front. If she comes here, tell her I’ve escaped to Darkest Peru. Or Outer Mongolia. Well then…’ He bounced on his feet again, from awkwardness or desire to get on with his new life, I couldn’t tell. ‘Thank you, Tabitha,’ he said, ‘you’ve been ridiculously understanding.’

  ‘And you, Michael, have been ridiculous!’ I said, but he didn’t hear me as he was already jogging away.

  ‘Coming, Mammy!’ he called to Lucy. ‘I’m coming!’ And Lucy, standing by the ministerial car (Terry sitting in the driver’s seat, eyes studiedly front), looked as if she didn’t mind her new role at all. In fact, she was glowing with happiness.

  I’d hardly had chance to close the door when the doorbell rang again; it was Celia looking more than her usual uptight self.

  ‘Where is he?’ she said. ‘And where is that homewrecker?’

  ‘They’ve just this minute left,’ I said, feeling a surge of irritation that Michael was on the run from his mother and had left me to deal with her.

  ‘They’ve? You mean, Michael and… Lucy?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And you let them go?’

  ‘Well, I have no choice.’

  ‘Typical of you, Tabitha,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t fight a wet paper bag. Never mind your marriage, your reputation. You’re happy, are you? Your husband swanning about with a young one, a girl half his age…’

  ‘She’s only ten years younger…’

  ‘How am I going to live this down? The shame! Michael Senior, now he had a roving eye but it was never talked about. Never. That’s what men do. Boys will be boys. But to get into the papers. I mean, this is a new low.’ She looked as though she was going to collapse. Her voice wobbled as though she was about to cry. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Celia, come in. I’ll make some tea.’

  In the kitchen, Red was leaning against the work surface, drinking his tea.

  ‘Celia, this is Red, a friend of mine. Red, this is Celia, my… mother-in-law.’

  ‘Pleased to… whatever,’ she said, the tragedy of her son, the adulterer, making her forget her manners. Something she would never have countenanced before.

  ‘Listen, I’m going to go,’ said Red. ‘Leave you to it.’

  ‘No you can stay,’ said Celia, ‘whoever you are. It’s all common knowledge anyway. I am beyond caring. You may as well know everything. The whole world knows. We have no secrets, it seems. Out dirty washing hung on the line for everyone to inspect. Where’s Rosie? I hope to God and all the saints she has been spared this shame. Though how we can
keep it from her for much longer, I really don’t know.’

  ‘Celia, she knows. It was in the papers.’

  ‘In my day, children did not know anything that went on in the lives of their elders. My own mother never, ever mentioned anything which was not suitable for small ears. It wasn’t until I was married myself did she tell me about her health issues… down there. And my father, he was a rogue – aren’t they all – but I heard not a dickie bird until he was long gone.’ She sighed. ‘How is she taking it?’

  ‘In her stride, so far,’ I said. ‘We’re all taking it in. But, Celia, I think that there is little we can do about it except wish them well.’

  She looked at me as if I was from outer space. ‘Wish them well? Wish them well? What on earth for. Maybe you should hold a party and make a cake. Or move out of the house into the shed in the garden and let them have everything, why not? Let that little minx take everything! When I think of how nice I was to that girl. I thought she was good for Michael, someone he could trust and rely on. I had no idea she was feathering her nest, ready to pounce, the little magpie.’

  She fell into the chair at the table and put her head in her hands. ‘Imelda took great delight in showing me the article. The headline… oh…’ She shuddered. ‘I could see it in her eyes. Delight, ecstasy, pure pleasure! At my downfall. She’s been waiting for this for years, she has. Since we were in school. She’s always been jealous of me, just because I was good at spelling and had a long neck and a nice nose. And then when I married Michael Fogarty – senior – and she was stuck with Frank. Fat Frank we called him, secretly – her jealousy took hold. And now I am the mother of –’she coughed twice delicately, ‘ahem-ahem Foggy.’

  ‘Celia…’ I stood there helplessly. ‘You should talk to Michael, not me.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry,’ she said. ‘Don’t you worry. I shall be doing more than talking to him, I can tell you. I shall be giving him a piece of my mind.’

  Rosie came downstairs. ‘I’m going out, Mum,’ she said. ‘Oh hello, Granny. I just want to go and see Alice… see how she’s getting on.’

  ‘Rosie,’ said Celia. ‘You shouldn’t be visiting friends. You should be revising.’

  ‘I’m not doing them,’ she said. ‘Not this year anyway.’

  Celia looked as though she had vomited in her own mouth.

  Rosie blundered on. ‘I’m taking a year to reassess…’ she said, speeding up, as Celia’s face was a picture of someone witnessing untold horrors. ‘I’m going to reapply to another college. Do something with English.’

  ‘Not. Doing. Your. Exams? Not. Going. To. Trinity!’ Celia’s wild eyes swivelled to me. ‘What is going on? Somebody FOR GOD’S SAKE tell me what’s going on!’ She focussed on Red, who was leaning inconspicuously on the edge of the kitchen counter. ‘Can you tell me?’ she charged at him. ‘Do you know anything? Because it seems I am the last to know!’

  Red shook his head.

  But then she turned to me. ‘And you’re happy, are you, Tabitha?’ she accused. ‘You’re happy about this? I might have known you’d scupper her chances, ruin her future.’

  ‘Granny, please…’ Rosie was on the verge of tears.

  ‘Celia, it’s all going to be fine,’ I tried to explain. ‘This year’s been really tough on Rosie and she’s seeing a counsellor to deal with anxiety… there was no way she could do the Leaving Cert.’

  ‘No way she could do the Leaving Cert?’ Celia repeated, utterly incredulous, looking as though she had swallowed a wasp. She began making weird throat-clearing sounds.

  ‘Anyway,’ went on Rosie, ‘everything’ll be lovely once the baby’s born.’

  ‘A baby? You’re not… don’t tell me that… surely you’re not… you can’t be…’ Celia was white with shock.

  ‘Not me, Granny. Dad and Lucy!’

  Celia looked ready to faint. Her hand rattled her cup. ‘Baby?’ Her voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper. ‘A baby.’

  Time for the medicinal Baileys, I thought but then my phone rang.

  ‘If it’s Michael, tell him his mother wants a word,’ warned Celia.

  ‘It’s not, it’s Mary. I have to take this.’

  ‘Tabitha.’ Mary was crying. ‘Tabitha. I’m in customs in Dublin airport and they won’t let me through. I had my purse stolen in Dubai and I’ve lost my passport and everything. I’m so sorry to bother you, I know you’ve got enough on your plate because Mammy rang me about Lucy. She’s mortified. Are you all right?’

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ I said.

  ‘I tried to call Red,’ she went on, ‘but there was no answer.’

  ‘You were in Dubai?’

  ‘Stopover. We were only there for three hours and I just wasn’t paying attention. I was so caught up with…’ She began to sob now. ‘You’ve probably got enough to do but if you could get a message to Red, he might be able to come.’

  ‘He’s here with me actually,’ I said. ‘But what do you need me to do?’

  ‘Would you mind going to my house. Key’s under the geranium pot on the window beside the door. There’s a copy of my passport in the filing cabinet in my office upstairs. Top door, marked Personal. They said they would accept a copy for now and then at least… at least we can go home. It’s been such a long and exhausting week and we just need to sleep.’

  We?

  When I put down the phone, I turned to Red, ‘we have to go to the airport,’ I said. ‘Mary’s lost her passport. She said she tried to call you.’

  He held up his phone. ‘On silent. Sorry. The poor woman.’

  ‘Do you know what’s going on?’ I said.

  ‘I might do but I think it would be better if it came from her. Shall we go?’

  ‘You’re coming?’

  ‘Try and stop me. Where you go, I go.’

  ‘You’ll find out,’ he said. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t sure how to make you come otherwise.’

  And after I had poured Celia another Baileys and left her sitting on the sofa, her feet up, ready for a little sleep, he took my hand and we ran out to his car.

  ‘I had no idea your life was so exciting,’ he said.

  ‘It hasn’t been for decades,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what’s going on.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  At the airport, Red dropped me off and went to park the car. Inside the terminal, I explained everything to a security guard.

  ‘It’s a friend of mine. Mary Hooley. I have a copy of her passport to prove she is an Irish citizen. I don’t know why you didn’t just ask her to speak. She’s from Ballyjamesduff and she has the accent to prove it.’

  He jerked his thumb. ‘She’s back here.’

  He led me through a secret door, flashing and skimming his pass through a warren of corridors and electronic gates until he pushed open a door. And there was Mary, drinking a cup of tea, with another security guard.

  ‘Cavalry has arrived,’ said the first guard.

  ‘We are so sorry to drag you all this way,’ said the second guard. ‘But with things as they are, you know, we’d get in terrible trouble, so we would. We can’t let people through without passports. It’s not like the old days when any Tom, Dick or Paddy would swan through passport control. Now, Mary here and the little lady can finally be away. They’ve had a terrible journey all the way from Beijing so they have. They’re both fit to be tied.’

  ‘Little lady?’

  Mary was looking at me with big eyes, tears pooling. ‘I’ve got her, Tabitha,’ she said. ‘She’s here. My little angel is finally here.’ She unpeeled the top of her coat to show me what was tucked inside. A tiny face, eyes closed, a thatch of black hair on her head. The sweetest little rosebud for a mouth. ‘This is little Huan… my new daughter, adopted from China. I’ve waited so long for her but this time everything is all right… everything is just perfect.’

  ‘Oh my God…’ I looked at Mary with wonder. A huge smile of awe and amazemen
t spread on my face, matching the one that had appeared on Mary’s. ‘You are a dark horse,’ I said, bending over the tiny figure, nestled against her new mother. ‘Hello Huan,’ I said gently to the little black head. ‘Hello little lady.’

  ‘It means joy,’ said Mary. ‘Who would have thought that something so small could bring so much joy?’

  She pulled her coat down lower so I could see Huan’s tiny hands balled into fists, her bright intelligent eyes looking at me, wondering where on earth she was. She still had on a beautiful jade-coloured Chinese jacket and tiny little embroidered slippers.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ I said, overawed by this adorable baby who had travelled so far. ‘Welcome to Ireland, little girl of happiness. You’ve come a long, long way and it’s time to go home.’

  *

  We helped settle Huan into her new house, their house, making sure the heating was on and warming up Huan’s cot – which Mary had bought before heading off – with a hot water bottle.

  Finally, we drew up outside my house. We sat in the car for a moment, talking about Mary and Huan.

  ‘So you knew everything?’

  ‘Only some of it,’ he admitted. ‘I knew she was going through this long and arduous process, that she had travelled to China before and that it hadn’t worked out. Frankly, I don’t know how she kept it together, there were so many disappointments, near-misses… and then this happened. She got the call that there was a baby who needed a home and… well, she just had to leave. I think she talked to me because I was an outsider. No judgement…’

  ‘I wouldn’t have judged,’ I said, quickly, defensively.

  ‘We became friends,’ he said. ‘I think it was our shared love of Johnny Logan. And then going to see improving films together. She told me what exactly she’d gone through to get to this point.’