“I suppose you don’t want to drink a celebratory toast?”
“Oh no, I’ll drink to it all right. I’ll drink to a job well done. Don’t expect me to fall in love with it, that’s all. Sláinte is fadshaol,” he says, as he raises his glass and clinks it against hers.
She nods wanly. “Good health.” Her enthusiasm for her little palace has suffered a blow. She sips her drink in a subdued fashion, barely able to hold up her end of the conversation.
“They made a fine job of it,” he allows as they sit in the extended kitchen. “This room has brightened up nicely. It’ll look well when you slap a lick of paint on the walls.”
She’s finding it difficult to maintain her equilibrium. She hadn’t realized quite how dependent she is on his approval, and how she courts it. As if he realizes his gaffe, or senses her despondency, he rouses himself. “I haven’t really looked at the place properly,” he declares. “It’s hard to absorb it all in one go. I’ll take another turn about.” He redoes the tour of downstairs on his own. She sits at the table and knocks back her drink. She has no intention of being mollified by this pseudo-interest in the restored house. “It’s grand. Transformed. It does you proud,” he says on his return. “Now, don’t be disappointed if I don’t bow down and adore the kitchen when it arrives,” he jokes.
“You needn’t worry. I won’t mention it. I won’t even draw your attention to it.”
“No getting into a huff now! Sure, you’ll have to mention it. There’s no avoiding that.” He holds out his glass for a refill. “Don’t expect too much of me these days. I can’t see past my nose,” he says gruffly.
“I know it’s silly of me to be so pleased by the place. It’s just the relief of having it finished.”
“And being able to live in it. That’s great.”
“How’s Julia?” she asks as she sees him out.
He squirms as if a part of him itches. “She’s not getting any better.”
“Is she worse?”
“She’s not responding well to the chemo. It makes her very sick. They took another scan and it looks as if the cancer’s spreading. They may stop the treatment, although they’re talking about taking her back in for a blood transfusion.”
“If they stop, does it mean they’ve given up?”
“Washed their hands of her, you mean? Well, yes.” He sighs. “There have been all sorts of meetings with consultants and doctors. They suggest placing her in a nursing home or even trying for hospice care, but she won’t hear of any of it. She expects to be looked after at home, and Mona has been roped in to help. That’s all very well, but Mona has a family, and the youngest boy is still at school. Nevertheless Julia is dead set against hiring nurses. She won’t let the palliative care team near her. Says there’s no call for them. But there will be need of all these people soon. I can see changes in her every day. She’s going to need a lot of looking after, and the farm won’t run itself. We won’t be able to keep going — how do they put it? — twenty-four seven.”
“How long can this go on?”
He throws up his hands in an exasperated gesture. “How long is a piece of string?”
“This must be a very invasive cancer, it’s so fast acting.”
He massages one of his temples as if trying to rub away a mark. “Ellen, she’s dying. Barring miracles, she can’t beat this. I’m sick to the back teeth of being told these amazing survival stories — people who confounded the medics — but the odds are against her.” A bleak expression hardens his features. “Not that she’s ready to die.” He makes a face. “When the medics say that she knows her own mind, it’s not a compliment. They mean that she’s contrary and difficult. She’s not making it easy on anybody, least of all herself.
“Those palliative care people,” he continues, “they’re very keen on the idea of making a good death. They want to ask her if she believes that she will survive. They expect people to face the end and talk about it, but that doesn’t square with Julia’s frame of mind. She’s denying the whole thing. She can’t get out of the bed unaided. She has no appetite, even for the liquid stuff, and she’s fading away. Nevertheless, the other day she told Mona she was going to beat this!”
“They say that people with a positive frame of mind live longer.”
“They say a lot of things, Ellen, and most of it is tripe. There’s a medical condition. She’s deteriorating. There’s no denying that.”
“No, I agree. It’s grim.” She wonders if she dare hug him, but she’s fairly certain that he’d rebuff her.
“I’d best be off,” he says. “No rest for the wicked.”
“Drop in again soon,” she says. “I’m willing to lend an ear anytime. You can say whatever you like. I don’t mind.”
He snorts. “What would I say?”
“Oh, you could give out about things, complain, whinge if you want. That sort of stuff doesn’t bother me.”
He throws her an incredulous look. “I’m not in the habit of whinging, as you put it, and I don’t intend to start now.”
“All this buttoning up, the stiff upper lip, doesn’t help anybody.”
He tilts his head and drags his fingers through his hair. “I’m no good at that sort of talk. You know that.” He strides off, his shoulders hunched against the day.
Maureen is already in situ when Ellen reaches the restaurant. “Just as well we’re having an early bird,” she says. “The à la carte prices are way over the top.” It’s the best part of three months since they last met, and in the intervening time Maureen has dyed her hair an unbecoming blond. Ellen wonders what Maureen’s students make of her new hairstyle. She clamps her mouth shut on a comment.
“Did you bring photos?” Maureen asks. “I’m mad to see this house. I’ve heard so much about it over the phone.”
“How’s everyone at work?” Ellen asks.
“I can’t believe how the school year is flying. Midterm was over before I realized it had started. You’re well out of it, Ellen. What I’d give to be able to take time off like you.”
“It’s very odd not seeing all of you every day. I’d better get my act together and find part-time work but, honestly, I’ve been too taken up with the renovations.”
“Well, we can’t get used to you not being about at break time or lunch. Jane and Nesta send you their love. They want us to meet up for a big night out soon. You should come up and celebrate Jane’s birthday in a few weeks. It’ll be Christmas before we know it, so don’t let it go too long, Ellen. Come up on the Friday, and we’ll all hit the town. Will I put your name down for the staff’s Christmas dinner?”
“No, no. That’d be really weird. It’s too soon to be coming back. But tell Jane and Nesta I miss them every day.”
A waitress brings a bottle to the table. “I took a chance on the red, Ellen. You like red, don’t you?” The waitress pours a tasting amount of wine into a glass. Maureen brings the glass to her nose and sniffs. “That’s fine,” she says. “You can pour away.” Maureen examines Ellen’s photographs in a perfunctory fashion. “The conservatory worked out well. It doesn’t have that added-on look, and you’ve made a good job of the kitchen space. But I’m no good at the visuals. I don’t get any idea of the rooms from bare floors and plastered walls. I want to see it when it’s furnished and done up.” Maureen turns her attention to Ellen and scrutinizes her. “You’ve perked up!” she declares. “Last time we met, you had a cold you couldn’t shift and you were on antibiotics. You’re looking a lot better, more like the Ellen of years ago. The country air must agree with you. Maybe being away from Kitty helps?”
Ellen smiles. “Everything’s okay at the moment. I felt pretty rough at first but that’s gone.”
“Definitely you needed a change of surroundings.” Maureen breaks off to give her order to the waitress and waits for Ellen to give hers. “How long is it since you phoned me about the split? It must be heading up to a year.”
“A year next week.”
“You were in the
throes of the breakup then, but you’re well on your way now. And wasn’t I right when I said that it was the best thing that could happen?”
Ellen nods. “The hard part wasn’t breaking up — although it was bloody difficult at the time — no, the difficult bit is finding a replacement life.”
“How did you stick it out for so long? That’s what I don’t understand.”
“Why didn’t I leave? I thought about it lots of times, but whenever I worked up enough courage to go — maybe he sensed what I was up to — he’d make an effort, and I’d feel that I’d better give it another chance. And that’s the way it went on for years and years. Looking back on it, I think I must have been depressed.”
“Probably. Maybe Christy isn’t a bad man, but it was definitely an unhealthy situation. He really did you a favor by finally bailing out. What gets to me is that when you and he socialized he’d be all over you. Nobody would ever have guessed how it was. I knew things weren’t right because you lost all your joie de vivre.”
“I got bogged down in it,” Ellen says with a grin.
Maureen laughs. “It swallowed you up. You’ve no idea of the changes in you these last few months. You’re back to smiling. You’re laughing again. You used to look so serious, so severe.”
Ellen shrugs. “See,” Maureen says. “You look taller these days because you’re not hunched in on yourself.”
“You’re seeing stuff that isn’t there, Maureen.”
“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true. Tell us, have you made up with Kitty?”
“We’re civil to each other. She’s being gracious and forgiving.”
“I was amazed the way she took it. Considering what you told me about the men in her life, I thought she’d take it in her stride.”
“Christy was good at playing the attentive son-in-law. She wouldn’t believe that he was utterly different at home.”
“‘He left his fiddle in the hall.’ That’s a phrase my father used about men like him. You have the distinction of being the first person on the staff to separate, to do it openly.”
“It’s not top of my list of achievements but it beats being in a dead marriage. If two people were ever mismatched, it was Christy and me.”
“What did you think you were getting into?”
“I think I bought into that excitement he seemed to generate. I made the mistake of thinking it meant something. All his predecessors were such duds — kids really, fellows moping about, wasters — that they made him look good. I didn’t love him and I wasn’t in love with him, but I didn’t realize that. How does any twenty-four-year-old know what they’re doing? I was sleepwalking, Maureen. I wasn’t awake.”
Much as she doesn’t know what Maureen’s marriage is really like, it strikes Ellen that she can’t convey to Maureen what being married to Christy meant. He wasn’t a stupid man but he was shallow, with no close emotional connections to anybody. During their years together he evinced not the slightest interest in her or her inner life. How would she express the loneliness of being his wife?
However, Ellen is resistant to divulging these details to others. Huge areas of experience are so private and personal that they’re impossible to discuss with other people. Revelations are embarrassing. All a friend can do is act as a sounding board, because they daren’t comment or criticize. Even if regretted, confessions can’t be retracted. They leave a stain that won’t ever be washed away.
Unannounced, Eugene O’Brien calls to her house one night, catching Ellen makeup free, and wearing a misshapen old navy woolen jumper, tracksuit bottoms, and dilapidated trainers. He’s even taller than she remembered, and the scar lends him a buccaneering air. She takes in his fresh jeans, crisp white shirt, and brown leather jacket. He looks as if he detoured to see her on his way out to a social event.
She steps back, and next thing he’s in her kitchen, an invader, even though she had no intention of admitting him. “Decisions, decisions,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “That’s why I’m here.” She’s conscious of him taking in the spread of Saturday newspapers, a plate of crackers and cheese, and a half-empty bottle of red wine on the table.
“Decisions?” she asks.
“You said to call about the kitchen. Is this a good time?” His smile reveals the whiteness of his teeth.
About as bad as could be, she thinks, but she has no excuse with which to fob him off. For reasons unknown, she can’t make even the most basic decision concerning the kitchen. “I was just chilling out,” she says, indicating the mess on the table. “I suppose there won’t be a better time.”
He’s brought his bag of tricks, the samples, color charts, suggestions, photographs, and specifications. “If you’re sure?” he asks.
“Yes, yes, why not? Let’s bite the bullet.” She gathers up newspapers, dumps them on the floor, and clears a place for him at the table. He plonks down his wares, looks up at her, and grins. “Tea or coffee?” she offers. He raises an eyebrow. “Or a glass of wine?”
“Wine would do a treat.”
She finds a second glass as he sorts through his stuff. “You’re well prepared,” she observes.
He orders her to sit beside him, tops up her glass, fills his own, and lays his products out on the table. “Have a look at these,” he says, indicating photographs. He encourages her to sift through the bundles of pictures and diagrams and to extract anything she likes, reaches across her to point out examples, saying things such as, “I thought this might appeal” or “That would look well.”
“I may lose concentration,” she warns, but he guides her seamlessly through his interpretation of what might please her. In the end, he sketches an impressionistic mockup on the back of one of the brochures. When he presents her with this, she realizes how well he has understood her.
“How about we go through it one last time?” he suggests.
“You’re very bossy,” she complains. “Do we have to? I was told you weren’t pushy.”
“Who’s the woman who keeps changing her mind? I don’t want you going off on a different tack once I’ve started to make it. Know what I think the problem is?”
“What?”
“You think you should deny yourself the things you like, but you still hanker after them.”
He’s too bloody attractive, she thinks, much better looking than her first impression of him, and she likes him more each time they meet. This is his third time in her kitchen. For their last meeting, he had prepared an estimate and talked her through everything, but she felt becalmed, disengaged, out of it, so much so that he made his excuses and left.
“There’s so much choice, too many kitchens,” she complains, aware that this is probably a tactic to hold his attention. “This must be a killer for you, this dithering woman, the client who doesn’t know her own mind.”
“I’m used to it,” he explains cheerfully. “It’s a big decision. Some people just want the model they saw in a showroom or magazine or something that was on the box. Lots of people haven’t a clue. They’re like kids in a sweets factory. They can’t tell you what type of oven they want, where they want it, or how much they’re going to use it.” He shows no sign of impatience, seems to even enjoy the exchanges.
“I’d like to keep my options open in case I ever turn into a cook,” she volunteers, and is disconcerted to find him looking baffled.
“Don’t you cook?” he asks.
“Well, yes, but only when strictly necessary.”
He shakes his head at her. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, woman?”
She laughs and then hears her laughter. It’s arch, flirtatious. She feels obvious and false. Suddenly she’s disgusted by her vacillations. Of course he’s not interested in her culinary prowess but feels that he has to humor her. “Look, I’m going to finalize everything,” she declares.
“You’re the boss,” he says, with an infuriating, knowing grin.
She avoids his eyes and tries to damp herself down. “You’re very dedicated, Eugene. Y
ou should be out on the town on a Saturday night, not here with a client.”
“I’m perfectly happy as I am.”
She sits back in her chair and rattles it off. “Okay, here goes. Separate hob and oven — I want a separate grill, too — the mix of wood and metal you suggested, and damn the expense. Cherry wood units, the granite worktop, the larder, saucepan drawers, and the corner carousel. Put a figure on it.”
“Sure?”
She nods.
He scribbles figures, tots them up on a calculator, writes down a sum of money, and slides the page to her. She glances down. “Not as bad as feared. Right, I’ll go for that.” She knows that in the city a similar kitchen would be beyond her means. His amused gaze snags hers. “Word of honor. I won’t change my mind again. I promise. On my oath.”
“One final time, if you wish.”
“That way lies madness,” she says, and he laughs.
“Good. We’ll fix on that.” They shake on the deal.
She expects him to gather up his stuff and go, but he seems inclined to chat. He tops up her wine and drinks some of his own. She likes him being in her kitchen, sitting beside her and concentrating on nobody other than her. He’s an exotic presence, somebody who, under different circumstances, she would allow herself to be interested in.
“Tell us, how did you land here?” he asks. “I know you’re related to Matt, but that’s all I know.”
“It’s a long story. My marriage broke up so I was… well, I was mad to get out of Dublin… and, somehow or other, here is where I ended up.”
“You bolted.”
“Yes. I came here to establish an independent republic. But I’m familiar with this house, spent summer holidays here when I was a school girl, months at a time.”
Civil & Strange Page 7
