In My Sister's Shoes

by Sinéad Moriarty

  ‘What do you think you’ll do?’ Tara asked.

  ‘Go back to London and try to live a more balanced life,’ I said.

  ‘Why don’t you stay in Dublin?’

  ‘Because I feel less like a freak over there. Everyone here has moved on. Over there it’s normal to be married to your job and have a social life that revolves around colleagues. Most of the people I work with are either single, gay, divorced or recovering addicts. If you’re married with children you’re an anomaly.’

  ‘Will you get your job back?’

  ‘I spoke to Donna last week. She said the girl presenting myshow is pulling in good viewing figures so I may have lost that, but she said she’ll try to sort me out with something else and my agent is putting out feelers for me. Nothing concrete yet, but he’s pretty confident something will turn up. I feel useless here. Everyone has their own lives and I’m treading water until Fiona’s better. I don’t fit in. I’m too old for the single scene and too single for the married one. I’ll go back to London, give it a year, and if nothing really good comes up I’ll reconsider my options.’

  ‘What about Sam?’

  ‘I still have feelings for him, but he’s reeling from Nikki’s affair, so I don’t think he’s likely to rush into another relationship. I’m seeing him in a couple of days when he gets back from Oz. We’ll see how it goes.’

  Tara rested her head back on the pillows, ‘You guys were made for each other. I just know it’s going to work out.’

  I wished I had her optimism, not to mention Gonzo’s self-confidence. Life would have been a lot rosier.

  32

  In the five weeks Sam had been away, my hair had made a come-back. The patchy clumps had joined up and it now looked quite normal – if extremely short. He called a few days after he got back and asked if I wanted to go to a football match. Ireland was playing Sweden in a European Cup qualifier and he was covering it for the paper, but he’d be able to take me out for dinner afterwards.

  I didn’t know much about football but it wasn’t as if my diary was full and I was dying to see him. I felt this date would be make or break. If we got on well and ended up together, I was willing to give it a go, but if he was still being cagey and careful I’d tell him to take the time he needed to sort himself out. There was no point in trying to go out with him if he was still getting over Nikki. It would be a waste of time.

  I was praying it would work out. I couldn’t believe how strongly I still felt about him. Even though we’d been apart for so long, he had never left my thoughts. No guy had ever matched up to him and, looking back now, I could see what a good thing I’d had. I was too young to realize it at the time – too young, ambitious and stupid. Would I get a second chance?

  Fiona was in much better form. She was over the moon to be finished her chemo, and although she was apprehensive about the radiation treatment, she had been told the side effects were much less drastic. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘it’s only five weeks and then I’m finished with it all. I can have my life back, my hair, my energy and, hopefully, my body.’

  ‘How soon after the end of radiation do you get the all-clear?’ I asked.

  Fiona smiled. ‘I like your choice of words. I get tested six weeks after my last session and they should tell me within days.’

  ‘God, that’ll be such a relief,’ I said, refusing to allow a negative thought to enter my mind.

  ‘Or it’ll be back to square one, which I’m not sure I’d be able for. The beauty of getting cancer for the first time is that you don’t know what to expect. Now I know how awful chemo is, I don’t know if I could face it again.’

  ‘You won’t have to,’ I said, willing a way her doubts.

  ‘Careful, Kate, you’re beginning to sound like Dad.’

  ‘Maybe he’s got the right idea. If you refuse to believe something bad can happen, it won’t.’

  ‘That didn’t work with Mum,’ Fiona said quietly.

  ‘I know.’ I wished she’d stop bringing that up. It was hard not to, when our mother had died of the same disease at the same age, but it didn’t help to keep going back to it. ‘You’re not Mum, so stop thinking that.’

  ‘I’m trying to be positive, but I have to be prepared for the worst. Which is why I need to ask you another favour.’

  Oh, God, what now? I didn’t want to do anymore favours. I was all out of goodwill and payback. It had been almost eight months. I just wanted my sister to get better, be happy and have her old life back (minus anymore extra-marital affairs and love-children).

  ‘Sure, anything,’ I lied.

  ‘I want you to be the twins’ guardian if I die.’

  ‘What about Mark?’ I asked, shocked. He might not be their biological father, and he might not be the best father in the world, but he loved those boys in his own way. And, after all, this was the man who had stepped up to the plate, even when the plate wasn’t his.

  ‘Mark is their father,’ Fiona said, frowning. ‘I want you to be their female guardian. So if anything happened to him they’d have you.’

  From that moment on, I was determined that Mark would live a long and healthy life. I’d steam his vegetables for him myself. I’d hire him a personal trainer. I’d personally wrap him in cotton wool. I loved the twins but I had no desire to raise them on my own.

  ‘I don’t want some bimbo raising my kids.’

  ‘Who’s the bimbo?’

  ‘Mark’s new wife.’

  ‘You think if you died Mark would marry a bimbo?’ I asked her.

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Jesus, Fiona, the man doesn’t speak English, he speaks in maths terminology. His only interest is work. It’s highly unlikely that a bimbo would be interested in listening to the history of theorems. It may turn you on because you’re a genius too, but to a normal average female, it’s coma-inducing. Besides, can we please stop assuming that you’re going to die?’

  ‘I want to be prepared,’ said Fiona. ‘And should anything happen to me, I want the boys to spend time with you, their aunt, who can answer any questions they have about me and what I was like growing up.’

  ‘OK, I promise. Now can we please drop it?’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’d love to be their guardian. I’m honoured, and I promise to tell them only the good stuff about you.’

  ‘Thanks, Kate, for everything,’ said Fiona.

  ‘No problem,’ I said, busying myself with the boys’ laundry so she wouldn’t see me welling up. My God, I was turning into a basket case.

  I wasn’t sure what I should wear to a football game, so I opted for jeans and a halterneck top. Kick-off was at eight and it had been a really sunny day, which in Ireland meant that everyone at the match was burnt to a crisp.

  When the sun came out in Ireland people ran screaming from their houses to the beach, stripped off and layout for hours. For some unknown reason they never applied sun cream because of the myth that you couldn’t get burnt in the Irish sun – it wasn’t strong enough. The fact that there is only one sun, worldwide, didn’t come into the equation. You could get burnt in Spain all right, but not in Ireland – don’t be silly, sure the sun is too weak here. On sunny days, the hospitals would call in extra staff as hundreds of people came staggering through the A and E doors with sunstroke and severe burns. The men were the worst: ‘real’ men didn’t wear sun cream, it was for women. Real men just layout and fried.

  So, as I looked around me at the mainly male crowd, I saw bright red faces everywhere. The empty seats scattered around the stadium belonged, no doubt, to the fallen friends, who were currently on drips with sunstroke.

  Sam had left tickets for Dad and me at the entrance and he was going to meet me afterwards for dinner in a new restaurant down the road. Dad was delighted to be at the match as tickets had been hard to come by.

  ‘You should stick with this fella,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot to be said for going out with a sports journalist. Will you ask him if he can get m
e tickets for the hurling semi-final next week?’

  ‘We’re not even dating yet. I can’t start asking him for favours. Let’s just see how it goes.’

  ‘Fair enough, but if it goes well, you might ask him for three tickets. I’d like to bring Paddy and Dave.’

  ‘Dad!’

  ‘Lord, you’re very touchy. What happened with Derek and Roxanne? Is it off?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I haven’t spotted her walking around the house half naked lately so I think he might have finally got sense, or else he was dumped after your outburst.’

  ‘I really don’t know what he saw in that girl,’ said Dad.

  ‘Flesh.’

  ‘Apart from that.’

  ‘She’s sexy and wild and she did seem to appreciate his music.’

  ‘Jesus, that music’ll be the end of us all. He has only a few months left before his birthday and that’s it. I’m not having anymore of this rubbish. He’ll come and work for me and learn what a proper job is. I was running a business at his age, not writing about imaginary gangs. I was too easy on that fell a. After your mother died I let him away with murder.’

  ‘He was four, Dad.’

  ‘The Jesuits always say,“Give me the child until he’s seven, and I’ll give you the man.” I wasn’t strict enough with him and now he lives in a delusional world where he thinks he’s going to be the next Elvis Presley.’

  ‘He’ll be fine, and he does work hard at his music. He probably won’t get anywhere but at least he’s giving it his best shot. There’s no point in looking back and having regrets because you never tried.’

  ‘Pah! The music industry is as fickle as they come. Fiona’s the only one of you who got a sensible job with a pension and medical insurance – thank God.’

  ‘My job may not be sensible, but it’s a good job,’ I said, prickling a bit because it really bugged me that Dad never took what I did seriously.

  ‘Media’s the same as music. Here today, gone tomorrow. No security in it. It’s a young person’s game.’

  ‘What about Terry Wogan? He’s ancient and still going strong.’

  ‘You need to settle down, Kate, and have a family,’ he said, ignoring me. ‘That’s what life’s about. Find yourself a nice lad who’ll support you and have children.’

  ‘Like Fiona?’

  ‘I don’t think you’d last ten minutes with someone like Mark.’

  ‘He’s not so bad,’ I said.

  Dad’s head snapped round. ‘Mark? Who, according to you, was the root of all evil?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, Dad, I know I gave out about him a lot, but I’ve seen a different side to him and he’s not the worst in the world. He has some good traits.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Well, he’s loyal and he loves Fiona and the boys.’

  ‘Loyal?’ said Dad. ‘He’s never around to take Fiona to chemotherapy, and he hardly sees the boys, he’s in work so much.’

  ‘He’s taken her twice and when he comes home in the evenings he spends quality time with the boys.’

  ‘Quality time!’ spat Dad. ‘Modern mumbo-jumbo. Time is quality. Quality time is a phrase made up for people who spend no time with their kids and claim that the five minutes they do is of such high quality it makes up for all the hours they’re not present.’

  ‘Bit harsh.’

  ‘I’m sick of seeing these kids on television shooting people in schools and then the parents saying they don’t understand how little Johnny turned into a psychotic murderer. It’s because he had no supervision and no discipline in his life. Parents today don’t take responsibility for their children. If you’re going to have children, look after them and don’t be down in the pub drinking pints while they’re at home poisoning their little minds watching violence on television.’

  ‘OK, but Mark isn’t in the pub, he’s at work, and Fiona is there most of the time, and the twins don’t watch TV and aren’t about to mow down everyone in their Montessori school, so you can relax.’

  ‘The point is he’s a fair-weather father.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ I said. If there was one thing Mark wasn’t it was fair weather. The weather had been about as bad as it could be from where he was standing, and he had taken on two children who weren’t his.

  Dad looked at me. ‘I don’t understand the sudden turnaround. You were the very one slating Mark last week.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but I’ve realized that, actually, he’s fundamentally a good person. He just hides it well.’

  ‘When did you discover this?’

  ‘Recently.’

  ‘How?’

  Bloody hell it was like the Spanish Inquisition. ‘I dunno. I just noticed that he really does care about the twins and he loves Fiona.’

  ‘What did he do to make you realize this all of a sudden?’ asked the inquisitor.

  I was terrified of letting something slip and I was beginning to sweat under the pressure. ‘Jesus, Dad, what’s with all the questions? I just told you I realized over the last few days that Mark isn’t such a bad guy. Obviously he can’t be that bad if Fiona married him. It just took me a long time to see it. So I think we should try and cut him some slack.’

  ‘Women!’ huffed Dad. ‘You change your minds like the wind.’

  ‘Let’s watch the match,’ I said, desperate to change the subject before I unwittingly revealed that Dad’s eldest and finest had had a dangerous liaison, and that if the twins ever went to school and shot anyone, it might be due to the chemistry teacher’s genes, not because Fiona and Mark were bad parents. DNA can work in mysterious ways…

  33

  Ireland lost by two goals to nil. All around me grown men, who were probably responsible citizens in their everyday lives, screamed and roared like blood thirsty hyenas. The referee was a ‘blind wanker’, the Irish players were ‘useless fuckers’, the opposition were a ‘bunch of cheating bastards’… and on it went until the final whistle blew and everyone began speaking in normal tones and stopped cursing like drunken sailors.

  Dad, who was disgusted by the team’s lame performance, went home in a grump and I, who hadn’t cared who won, as long as my date wasn’t cancelled, skipped off to meet Sam.

  I arrived at the restaurant first and went to the bathroom to fix my makeup and hair. I put lipstick on, then rubbed it off. I put gel in my hair and tried to create that just-got-out of-bed style but it just looked as if I’d had an electric shock, so I rubbed it off with toilet paper, which got stuck in the gel and I had little bits of white tissue all over my head. Then I spent five minutes picking it out, by which stage I had two wet patches under my arms, which I tried to dry under the hand-dryer, but ended up burning myself and getting sweatier. I was a mess. Before I could do anymore damage, I went to sit at the table and ordered a large glass of wine, which I proceeded to gulp down.

  ‘Thirsty?’ asked Sam, smiling, as I choked on my drink. He looked incredible – tanned after his trip to Australia, and his green eyes were even more piercing than usual. I pinned my arms to my sides so he wouldn’t see the damp circles and tried to look relaxed.

  He bent down to kiss me – on the cheek, sadly, but it was early in the night – and his lightly stubbled face, with the scent of aftershave, had me reeling. I took another glug of wine to steady myself. No other man had ever had this effect on me.

  ‘How was your trip?’ I asked, attempting to be breezy.

  ‘Long,’ he said, and ordered a beer.

  ‘Poor you. Five weeks’ travelling around Australia watching sport.’

  ‘I know it sounds great, but the reality is that you’re watching games, staying up all night writing copy, then up again chasing interviews and trying desperately to get some fresh angle in a one-to-one with the coach you’ve talked to a hundred times already. You have dinner alone most nights, and the nights you go out it’s with the other journalists, who you’re sick of after a week or two. Honestly, I’d much rather have been back here sleeping in my own bed. The novelty of hote
ls wears off pretty quickly. How’ve you been?’

  ‘Well, while you’ve been off having a terrible time in Australia, I’ve been trying to entertain two hyper boys. With school over for the summer, they seem to have even more energy and be even more demanding than ever. I’m in bed by nine every night.’

  ‘How’s Fiona?’

  ‘Better, now that her chemo is finished. She starts radiation tomorrow. But she’s not able for the boys yet. They’re too full-on. She gets exhausted after an hour with them.’

  ‘Is she feeling positive about the end result?’ Sam probed.

  ‘Well, she’s organized everything so that if she dies the boys will be OK. I got landed with looking after them if Mark snuffs it, so I’m hoping he lives a long and healthy life. I love them, but I really don’t think I could bring them up on my own.’

  ‘So she thinks the treatment’s going to fail?’

  ‘No, it’s not that, she just wants everything to be set up in case she doesn’t get better. She doesn’t want to leave chaos behind like there was when Mum died, and none of us really knew what was happening and Dad had a meltdown and she ended up looking after Derek and me.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll get better?’

  ‘She has to. Life can’t be that cruel. Those boys are still babies, really. It would be too unfair to take her away from them.’

  ‘I’m sure she will. From what I remember, she’s a fighter.’

  ‘Yes, she is, and she deserves to be happy and live to see her boys grow up. Everyone deserves that.’

  Sam smiled at me.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing. It’s just you’ve changed. You’re a lot more mellow and reflective.’

  ‘I’m eight years older. Of course, I’m mellower.’

  ‘It’s not that, you seem more content, not so restless.’

  ‘I haven’t got the energy to be restless,’ I said, laughing.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Kate,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you.’