Life's What You Make It

by Sian O'Gorman

  ‘How is Shirley?’ said Jessica to Cara. ‘Is she still remembering to take her tablets?’

  ‘I think forgetting on purpose,’ said Cara. ‘She still thinks she’s twenty-five in her head. Doesn’t need Dr Butler nagging her on the phone to ask how she is. She just doesn’t realise she’s getting older.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I mean, who’s going to remind her to take her tablets? I can’t rely on Dr Butler to keep calling her.’ She stood up to go, just as a customer came in.

  ‘See you, Cara,’ I said. ‘Let me know if we can do anything. Good luck with the rest of the exams.’

  She nodded. ‘Thanks, Olivia. Have a great time in Barcelona, Jessica,’ she said, standing back for the customer. ‘Oh, hi, Catherine. How’s it going?’

  The woman had long brown hair and a thick fringe, eyes outlined in smudgy black and she wore a long cotton scarf around her neck and an Indian-print jacket. She smiled at us. ‘I’m just looking for something new,’ she said. ‘Something nice.’

  ‘Well, we have some lovely new things in,’ said Jessica. ‘Let me show you.’ She turned to me. ‘By the way, have you met Olivia? Olivia, this is Catherine who owns the flower shop. You know you were saying about the window display?’

  Catherine held out her hand, looking at me curiously.

  ‘Good to meet you,’ I said.

  ‘You too.’ She was smiling at me as though she knew something I didn’t. ‘What kind of flowers are you looking for?’

  ‘I was thinking of small bunches in old jars, the kind of things you might have picked in a field or at the side of the road and put in a vase… I just thought it would be nice for our midsummer window, it’s the thirteenth of June now, so next weekend.’

  ‘That sounds beautiful,’ said Catherine. ‘I love it! Of course we can help. Free flowers in return for a sign saying where they came from? Could that be a deal?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘And would you be able to do wild flowers?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘All our flowers are Irish-grown and totally natural, none of those hothouse, air-mile flowers. Cornflowers, grasses, poppies… that kind of thing?’

  ‘And Olivia wants daisy chains,’ said Jessica. ‘But I told her that they die too quickly. I’ll just go and have a look for some clothes for you… we have a few nice pieces in.’

  ‘Thank you, Jessica.’ Catherine turned to me. ‘Daisy chains?’ She paused for a moment. ‘Would you consider daisies made out of silver?’ she asked. ‘Or wire… I am sure I could make something.’

  ‘Make something? I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble.’

  ‘I used to be a jewellery designer,’ she explained. ‘I could make something that could trail along the front of the window. I need a project at the moment. I would love to do it. And it won’t take me long… I’m thinking maybe around fifteen small daisies… it could look really lovely.’

  ‘It sounds beautiful,’ I said, ‘but making something would be too much. I don’t think…’

  ‘But I would love the excuse,’ said Catherine. ‘You’ve given me an idea and I am desperate for a commission. My company was called Drithle. I gave it up when my son was born and it had all become too much. I thought I’d be able to pick it up again, but it just got further and further away from me. I’ve been looking for something to do.’

  ‘Drithle?’ I’d heard the name before.

  She nodded. ‘The Irish for “sparkle”.’

  ‘I have one of your bracelets,’ I said. ‘My friend Bronagh bought it me for Christmas years ago. It’s really delicate, silver with a few tiny beads… that’s you?’

  She laughed. ‘Sounds like one of mine,’ she said, looking pleased.

  ‘It must have been hard to give it up.’

  ‘I had to,’ she said. ‘We’d just had our son, Jake, and I couldn’t think straight. Dermot already had his plant business and opening up a flower shop in the village just seemed so much more manageable. Whereas, before, I felt totally on my own.’

  ‘I know the feeling.’ I then remembered my conversation with Will from the day before. Hadn’t he mentioned his nephew called Jake? ‘Is your son obsessed with seaweed by any chance?’

  She laughed, nodding. ‘Will told you about him?’

  ‘Yesterday…’ By the way she was looking at me, I also had the feeling Will had told her about me. ‘He showed my Mum and me around his house. Mum grew…’

  ‘…Up there,’ she finished. ‘Yes, he was delighted that you both seemed to like the house so much.’ She smiled at me.

  Jessica came back over to us. ‘I have a few things here,’ she said, holding up a dress. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It’s nice…’ Catherine put it against her and looked in the mirror. ‘It’s just a bit… I don’t know… too nice for me? Nothing feels right any more. Like I just don’t know what to wear these days. When I was at art college, I never gave clothes a second thought, but now… I just feel and look awful in everything.’ She sighed. ‘I just want to feel like me again, you know?’

  ‘Olivia was saying the same thing recently,’ said Jessica.

  I nodded. ‘I am going for joy these days. Colour, sparkle… a bit of lurex…’

  ‘Exactly!’ said Catherine. ‘There’s no joy in anything I wear… this jacket is the only thing left over from the old days, but everything else is just practical. I want something that reflects who I am, something that makes me feel like I am not quite so far from the overalls-wearing, paint-spattered girl I used to be.’

  And then I had a thought. We had a really cool jumpsuit on the rails. Navy, with a belt and puffed sleeves, but still boiler-suity enough that it might work for a frustrated ex-art student.

  ‘What about this?’ I said, pulling it off the rack.

  Jessica nodded at me, impressed, as Catherine gazed at it for a moment.

  ‘Wouldn’t I just look like I was trying to be the old me?’ she said.

  ‘Isn’t that what you want?’

  She laughed. ‘Okay. I’ll try it on.’

  ‘It has to bring you joy, though,’ I called as she disappeared into the dressing room. Emboldened, while she tried it on, I had a look around for what else we might have. Arty but not art school. Not boring but not wacky. I found a sweatshirt with a tiger’s head on which I’d been admiring. On Catherine, it might look cool. ‘Try this,’ I said, poking it through the curtain, along with a striped top and a pair of jeans.

  When Catherine emerged in the boiler suit, she was smiling. ‘I like it,’ she said, gazing at herself in the mirror. ‘No, I love it!’

  ‘Me too,’ I agreed, feeling a leap of pride. The boiler suit was a perfect fit, she looked super-cool but also arty and not remotely boring.

  ‘You don’t think it’s too much of a pastiche of the old me?’

  ‘It’s an homage to the old you,’ I said. ‘Do you feel joyful?’

  ‘You know,’ she said, studying herself, ‘I think I do.’

  As she tried on everything else, I waited slightly nervously on the other side of the curtain. Was the tiger thing cool, or had I lost the plot entirely? But when Catherine came out of the dressing room, she was grinning.

  ‘I love them all!’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ I tried not to look too surprised as Jessica gave me a thumbs up behind her back.

  Catherine handed everything to Jessica to pack up. ‘And I’ll start thinking about the flowers and the little silver daisy chains. I’ll make them in aluminium, so it won’t be expensive. Why don’t you come for a walk to the beach after work? We can chat more about it then?’ She looked delighted. ‘I am so excited to have a project again! I’d forgotten how much I love it!’

  I remembered it too, that glorious feeling of anticipation. ‘I used to have a skincare range,’ I explained. ‘Years and years ago. Soaps and body oils, that kind of thing. It wasn’t much, just my own stall in Dún Laoghaire market. I thought about seaweed… if I could extract the oils and then perhaps combine it with other oils…
make an emulsion, and then a scrub using salt from the sea… and a body oil…’

  Catherine suddenly smiled. ‘Seasalt! I knew I recognised you! I used to buy from the stall all the time. I was in college and I used to find your hand cream the only thing that worked… and that soap… what was it? Rose and something?’

  ‘Calendula. It was so popular. I couldn’t make enough of it.’

  ‘And there was a gorgeous face oil… raspberry and rose hip?’

  ‘Yes…’ I could smell them now, suddenly I was back in Mum’s house mixing my oils, writing my notes, measuring and pouring and funnelling. The whole house smelled so gorgeous, infused with the scents of Irish flowers and herbs.

  ‘Why did you give it up?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I just felt too young for it all, I wasn’t able to handle it.’

  ‘You didn’t believe in yourself.’

  I nodded. ‘That’s putting it mildly. I just ran out of confidence,’ I said. ‘I think I developed a kind of stage fright. Is that possible?’

  She nodded, totally understanding. ‘It’s not easy to run a business. But there’s no feeling like it when all is going well. It’s just that you have to deal with the downtimes as well.’ She picked up her shopping bags. ‘I’ll see you at the harbour, okay? I’ll be there with Jake; he paddles while I sit on the bench. We could have a coffee?’ But before she left, she said. ‘By the way, Will said you were lovely and he was right.’

  When the door closed behind her, Jessica gave me a look.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Dr Butler said you were lovely,’ she replied, smiling.

  ‘I don’t know what she meant,’ I said, feeling my cheeks go red. Why would he call me lovely? Perhaps he meant lovely enough. Or maybe he said lonely? But there was that glow spreading through my body and I felt myself smiling. Jeremy didn’t believe in compliments. ‘Only needy people need to be told nice things,’ he’d said. ‘Nice people don’t need things.’

  But then, Jessica looked at the clock. ‘Time to go!’ And she grabbed her bag and jacket.

  ‘Have a wonderful time!’ I shouted, but she was gone, just as the black Range Rover loomed outside.

  19

  The sea was a million crystals dancing on the waves. It was Friday evening and teenagers were jumping off the harbour wall, dive-bombing into the sea, while those of a more nervous disposition and lower adrenaline threshold lowered themselves down the steps, stepping gingerly into the water, the day’s work done, a summer evening stretching ahead. The harbour was a small sandy beach and a harbour wall, creating a lagoon at high tide.

  I slipped off my sandals and walked along the shore, over the coarse rocks and the smooth pebbles, across the ripples of sand and through puddles of water and then to the sea itself, letting it run over my feet and through my toes, the seaweed licking at my feet. I thought of everything I now knew about Mum. Why did Joseph Delaney just abandon her? Why didn’t he respond to the letter about Mum being pregnant? I wondered if he ever thought about her and me, and did he ever come back to Sandycove? Maybe he’d seen us and didn’t feel able to come over after treating us so badly. Whatever it was, there was no excuse. It was a shame that, after all this time, my father turned out to be a total waste of space. I preferred imagining that he was Keanu. He would never have treated us like that. I found myself laughing a little at the thought of it all. Joseph Delaney didn’t matter, I realised.

  Leaning down, I scooped up some green, frilly, silky fronds, and studied them. There was something so elemental and so pure about them, not beautiful but magnificent. I picked up a stray piece of bladderwrack which floated past my feet and pressed open one of its pods, releasing its gel, along with the mineral scent of the sea. This, I knew, would make a wonderful body oil. The smell was incredible… only in Ireland did seaweed smell so gorgeous, so fresh and clean, like an oyster.

  ‘Bladderwrack,’ said a boy who was paddling nearby. He was around ten, wearing a red hoodie and shorts. ‘Fucus vesiculosus, red fucus, dyers fucus, rock wrack, black tang, and bladder fucus.’

  I laughed. ‘You must be Jake.’

  He nodded, not remotely surprised that a complete stranger would know his name.

  ‘Do you like seaweed too?’ he asked. ‘I thought you did because of the way you were looking at it. Not many people like to touch it and no one stares at it the way you were. Or smells it.’

  ‘I do like seaweed. I always wanted to use it in my…’ I stopped, realising I was envious of Catherine and how she had the opportunity to reignite a part of her old life. ‘I think it’s so interesting,’ I said, instead. ‘Don’t you?’

  He nodded. ‘Mum says it looks like mermaid’s hair, but I like the way it holds on all day waiting for the sea to come back.’

  ‘Hello!’ It was Catherine, walking across the rocks towards us. ‘So you’ve met my Jake.’ She put her two arms around him and pulled him towards her, kissing the top of his head. He allowed it briefly before pulling away.

  ‘We were just talking about seaweed,’ I said.

  ‘Of course you were,’ said Catherine, smiling. ‘I’ve been sitting on the bench sketching. I think I know how I can make the daisy chain work.’

  We sat on a large boulder looking out to sea, while Jake continued his paddling.

  ‘I couldn’t live anywhere else other than Sandycove, now,’ said Catherine. ‘When I met Dermot, I was living in the city centre, near Temple Bar, and thought I’d be bored senseless here. I love the sea and the village and the fact that there’s always something going on.’

  ‘Well, I live in London,’ I said. ‘There’s always something going on there too, except I never had much of a chance to do anything. I used to finish work too late.’

  ‘I thought you’d moved back?’

  ‘No… I’m only here for a couple more weeks,’ I said. ‘But maybe I will come home in a couple of years, once I’ve had enough of London. I moved there looking for a bit of fun and excitement and…’

  ‘You got it?’

  I thought of Maribelle and the time we were flying home from New York and she was nearly forcibly ejected from the plane because she was drunk. I had to reassure the stewards I would take complete responsibility for her, but, when they wouldn’t serve her alcohol, Maribelle kept starting arguments. Luckily, she had a couple of Xanax and when they finally kicked in, she fell asleep all the way to Heathrow.

  ‘Yeah… in a way…’

  ‘I’ll show you the daisy chain sketches.’ Catherine took out a notebook from her bag. ‘Wire and then small aluminium petals, and I could thread them through each other. It could be beautiful. What do you think?’

  Her sketches were works of art in themselves, so delicate and perfect. ‘They look beautiful,’ I said, amazed. ‘Are you sure you will have time to do it?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’m going to make thirty of them, which I think would be enough to stretch across the window. And they will all be different.’ She looked back at the sketch. ‘I had a look at flowers and I can order some lovely wild and garden flowers. And I thought even a few thistles or dandelions, just to mix in and give them that hedgerow look. And what about a flower crown for you to wear for the festival?’

  It all sounded magical and lovely. ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘It’s a pleasure. It’s our way of being involved in the festival. And Jake is in the tin whistle orchestra, so we’re delighted.’

  Jake wandered over, bored. ‘Mum, come on!’ he said. ‘Daddy and Will said they would buy me an ice cream. They’re coming over now.’

  Will? There was that fairy-dust feeling, and I realised how much I wanted to see him.

  ‘You can’t have an ice cream,’ said Catherine. ‘We’ll buy some and have it after dinner.’ She looked up. ‘Oh, here they are!’ Catherine had turned around and lifted her hand to wave to two figures walking out of the sea towards us, a small dog running beside them to keep up. ‘They are such good friends, the two of
them. When Will said he was coming home, Dermot was so happy. He’d really missed Will when he was so far away.’

  And there, in his swimming trunks, was Will, his shoulders still wet with seawater, his hair soaking. I had to force myself to look away because he would have caught me staring.

  Beside him was a slightly less good-looking, shorter version of himself – Dermot. He put his arm around Jake. ‘You should have come in with us,’ he said. ‘There were jellyfish, you would have loved them.’

  ‘Dermot, this is Olivia,’ said Catherine. ‘This is Nell’s daughter and she’s working in the shop.’

  ‘Yes, of course!’ He held out a wet hand, smiling. ‘Great to meet you. Will was telling me all about you…’

  Will looked embarrassed. ‘I was just saying about your mother and her house…’ he explained, Pablo sniffing at some seaweed beside him.

  ‘Your house,’ I said.

  ‘It’s both of ours,’ he said, smiling almost shyly, ‘in a way.’

  ‘I really need to start bringing my dressing gown here,’ said Dermot. ‘That’s what all the old guys do. We stand out as newbies because we don’t have a frayed, faded dressing gown and a towel under our arms.’

  ‘Yes, but when do we get to join their ranks?’ said Will. ‘How many years do you need to have been swimming for?’

  ‘Fifteen,’ replied Catherine. ‘At least. You don’t become a veteran overnight. I bet they don’t even talk to you.’

  ‘They nod,’ said Dermot. ‘Nothing more. They save their chat for the insiders.’

  ‘Right,’ said Catherine. ‘Who’s hungry? Olivia, would you like to join us?’

  ‘I can show you my seaweed collection,’ said Jake.

  ‘Now, there’s an offer you can’t refuse,’ said Dermot.

  ‘Um, well… I don’t know…’

  ‘Come on,’ said Catherine. ‘We’re getting bored of each other… we need someone new to talk to.’

  ‘Well, I’m not bored of you,’ said Dermot.

  ‘So, it’s me then,’ said Will, laughing.

  ‘I think Catherine just needs us to up our conversational game,’ replied Dermot. ‘But until we do that, we need Olivia to come and stop us from boring each other.’