The Blue Pool

by Siobhan MacDonald

  She was regarded as responsible, honest, a team-player and trustworthy. Above all, she was regarded as trustworthy. It felt like she’d been laundered.

  As she stood there she became aware that she was grinding her teeth. The phone call wasn’t going to change things. She wouldn’t let it. No one in her new life knew about Sarah Nugent.

  “Heaven’s sake!” she said again, snatching a glance at the clock.

  It was her turn to pick up the kids – Helen’s kids too. Helen lived at the other end of their gated enclave. The two women operated a rota, not that Helen ever managed a pick-up in person. The nanny did that. Helen spent even more time on the golf course than Ruth.

  Ruth thought back to events in Ireland. There was little that she could do. She’d have to wait it out see how things unfolded. It seemed ironic, laughable even, that a specialised detective team had struggled for years to discover what had happened and now that klutz, Richard Moran, was able to shed some light on the case now. The others had thought him funny and attractive but Ruth had always thought him a bit of a twit. A kind enough guy. But still a twit.

  “Another one,” muttered Ruth, plucking a grey hair she’d spied in the mirror. Her thick reddish hair was beginning to dull. She’d see if she could get a hair appointment tomorrow. She had intended going to the cinema but that could wait. It wasn’t as if she’d be letting anyone down. She preferred to go alone. Pulling up the collar of her cotton shirt and tightening the buckle on her jeans, she straightened up. She was not a tall woman. The kids were at her eye level now.

  “Stop it, Bailey!” she scolded the dog as he slavered drool all over the terrace window. “Come on, time to go.” She ushered the quivering animal into the back of the jeep.

  The four by four had been Colin’s idea. She’d been happy with the station wagon. This big vehicle reminded her uncomfortably of driving one of her father’s delivery trucks back home, but she couldn’t offend Colin by saying so. The car had been a birthday gift.

  Their firm was doing well again. With her guidance they’d managed to weather the downturns. Ruth was grateful as the children would be going to expensive schools next year. As she waited for the iron gates to open, she thought back to the previous evening when she and Colin had talked things over.

  “We’ll have to make a final decision on which school soon, Colin.”

  Colin was mucking about with the latest FIFA game on play-station even though Michael had long since gone to bed.

  “Yeah? Is that the royal ‘ We ’?

  “Seriously, Colin. I do have a preference, but you’ve got be involved as well. It’s not all down to me.”

  Ruth had thought she sounded gracious. It was true, she did want Colin to feel included. And if she happened to steer him in the direction of the school she’d already chosen, then all the better.

  “Mmm…” Colin twiddled with the controls. “So, it’s not a fait accompli, as usual?” He was staring intently at the players on the screen.

  “Of course not.”

  “Okay then, for what it’s worth, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the local comprehensive. Why not send them there?”

  “Good Lord!” Ruth had exploded. She knew he was trying to bait her but she couldn’t suppress her rising hackles. “You can’t be serious. Have you seen that lot? A bunch of delinquents. You can’t in all sincerity really want that for Michael and Claire, now can you?”

  Her outrage had amused him and he let rip a great big belly-laugh. Colin Kennefick was a big man.

  “Jesus, Ruth. It’s easy to rile you.”

  He leaned forward to adjust a setting on the screen, his trousers slipping to expose the cleavage of his buttocks. Ruth winced.

  “I know you’ve got this all sorted anyway.” He sighed and settled himself back in position. “I’m not stupid enough to think I’m part of any joint decision here. I didn’t come down in the last shower you know.”

  She smiled begrudgingly. “You know I’ve got the children’s interest at heart don’t you, Colin?” she said softly. “I want them to have decent friends. Friends who are achievers. It’s important you know. To be with people who have ambition. To have friends who look out for one another.”

  “I don’t want the kids under pressure, Ruth,” Colin said looking up from his game. “Our kids are nice the way they are. And as for life-long friends, it’s not like you’ve kept in touch with any friends from Ireland yourself.”

  Ruth was caught off-guard.

  “Bloody hell, Colin, stop playing with that stupid thing! You’re a grown man for goodness’ sake, not some adolescent,” Ruth had barked and stomped from the room.

  Almost immediately she felt regret. She hadn’t meant to snap. It wasn’t Colin’s fault. And it wasn’t the first time that Colin was left wondering why a mention of old friends aroused such ire and irritation.

  “I admit to being lost on this one, Ruth.” He’d followed her into the kitchen. “Sometimes, I just can’t figure you out.” He was looking at her the way Bailey did when she scolded him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The kids are well-adjusted, and yet you keep banging on about the importance of friends with ambition. They’re eleven and twelve for God’s sake. At that age, friends come and go. Look at yourself – if I’m not mistaken all your friends are the ones you made here. I may be mistaken, but over the years, I don’t think I’ve met any of your school or college friends.”

  Ruth didn’t want to have this conversation. She’d have to divert him. “I suppose so.” She tried to sound conciliatory.

  She wished she’d never brought it up. Colin was right. Most of her friends were English or American. She’d just struck up a friendship with a Russian woman who’d moved into a house further down the avenue. But what Colin didn’t know was that this was by design and not by accident. It was true there were no old confidantes from her early life in Ireland. And Ruth didn’t have a single Irish friend in England. She’d been careful. She’d severed as many ties as she could.

  Colin was not given to long periods of introspection and Ruth was grateful when he moved on. She didn’t like being probed. Having pondered the mystery that was his wife, Colin poured himself a large glass of milk and happily returned to the sitting room and to his game of FIFA.

  “I’m off to bed,” she said, poking her head around the door one last time.

  She wanted to finish reading that thriller tonight. Take her mind off things. However unlikely, she could still try.

  “Ok. I’ll be up in a bit.” He didn’t look round.

  * * *

  Most of the time, she and Colin rubbed along fine together. Ruth had never had any success with men until she’d met him. She couldn’t flirt. She wasn’t any good at it. And the whole business of being aloof and enigmatic seemed an utterly pointless charade to her, a ridiculous waste of time. She’d attempted being coy once or twice and ended up feeling a complete fool.

  Colin had warmed to her forthright nature. He liked her direct approach. He was the only man who had ever made her feel attractive. She was grateful to him for that. He also was the only man that had ever pursued her. Ruth liked the version of herself that he reflected back to her. Confident, capable, and attractive. Inside, she didn’t feel like that. She had nice clothes, expensive shoes, she had jewelry, but she lacked that inner poise possessed by people of genuine beauty. Good people.

  She felt no sexual attraction for Colin. None whatsoever. Not one shred. It wasn’t as if time had dulled their passion. There had never been any to start with – not for Ruth at least. And yet their partnership worked. She’d tried to pretend. But her heart had never really skipped a beat or ever fluttered. There’d been no lustful feelings, no great ache to feel his flesh on hers. She and Colin had reached a plateau in their relationship – it was something deeper than affection certainly, and she’d often hoped it might blossom into something more, something greater. But that had never happened.

  Colin had given h
er something more valuable than a fragile romance or fleeting sexual desire. He’d given her something she prized more than that. He’d made her feel worthy of love, something she’d doubted for years. For a long time after Sarah, she’d wondered if anyone could love her. She would always be indebted to Colin for making her feel human again. Despite all of this, despite their solid relationship, she’d never told Colin about Sarah. She couldn’t take the risk.

  She joined Colin Kennefick Architects as a junior accountant. If there was one thing Colin admired, it was her business acumen. It was part of her and yet her father had been disappointed that she’d never wanted to be part of his supermarket chain in Ireland. “Morning Noon and Night” stretched to five late night supermarkets from Listowel to Ballybunion. Like her fellow students in recession-hit Ireland, Ruth had always assumed she’d go to London or the States. Recession or not, Ireland was too limited, too small, too stifling. And much more claustrophobic after what happened. Unbearable, in fact.

  Her last year in university had been torture. The accusing looks, the sidelong glances in the college bar, the hushed conversations in the canteen, the lecture theatres that fell silent. The weight of guilt had almost crushed her. Like a chronic illness it held her in a vice-like grip for years.

  Ruth made her escape. She got the ferry to England. While other graduates moaned about cramped bedsits and squats, Ruth found her freedom. She found she was free to breathe again in this country with its millions of people. She adored the anonymity, the bigness of it all.

  Staying in a hostel in her first few weeks in London, she’d felt safe. No one knew who she was. No one cared. Ruth could start over again. And she had. All she had to do now was hold on tight to the woman she had become. To the woman that Colin loved and had married. The old Ruth was gone forever. Left behind in Ireland.

  Driving along the leafy road, it occurred to her that everyone has their regrets, small lapses in judgement and behaviour that didn’t make them proud. And in such rare moments as these, when she allowed herself to think about that day, she thought about her rotten luck. Appalling luck.

  Who could possibly have known that one unfortunate decision could turn out in the way it did?

  Kathy

  University

  November 1989

  “Hey, Kath – you home?”

  Over the hiss and sizzle of onions, Kathy heard footsteps on the creaking stairs. The dimpled glass door opened and three figures filled the sloping doorframe.

  “Jesus, not Liver Josephine and Smash again,” Sarah groaned.

  It was November 1989, the year they’d rented the flat over the pub by the harbour.

  “Don’t be a cow,” said Kathy. “It’s better than Charlotte’s black-pudding lasagne.”

  “Charlotte’s Lasagne à la King, you mean?” Ruth chipped in. They all had their signature dishes.

  Charlotte threw her duffel coat on the fold-down sofa.

  “What’s the matter, you dissentious rogues,

  That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,

  Make yourselves scabs?”

  Kathy joined in, “ You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate as reek o’ the rotten fens, whose loves I prize as the dead carcasses of unburied men that do corrupt my air, – I banish you.”

  “Enough, anon!” came Ruth, enjoying the Shakespearian exchange. “My belly it dost rumble for the delights of cheapest offal as thou dost hurl abuses at each other.”

  “Sit down, oh raucous harlots.” Kathy pointed to the table. It was laid with odds and ends of crockery. “And ponder on the skill that created such a feast on paltry monies.”

  Such corrupted Shakespearian scenes were not uncommon since their involvement in a production of Coriolanus the previous year. The Drama Society was how all four had met and then decided to share a flat together the following year.

  Thursday evening was Kathy’s turn to cook the evening meal. As the students tucked into liver, onions, and powdered mashed potato, the banter and needling commenced. Events of the day were discussed, dissected, and mulled over.

  “How can something as humble as liver and onions be called ‘Liver Josephine’ pray tell?” asked Sarah.

  “They have quite discerning palates out in the sticks.” Charlotte needled Kathy.

  Kathy was raised in the thinly populated bog-lands bordering Loch Allen in Roscommon. She was often teased about being a bog-trotter and a peasant.

  “A bog recipe?” asked Ruth, mopping up gloopy mash and onions.

  “Go stuff yourselves, the lot of you,” said Kathy, good-humoredly.

  “Ha! You can take the girl from the bog, but you can’t take the bog from the girl,” said Charlotte.

  “Whoa there, everyone!” cried Sarah. “You three are from beyond the Pale. I’m the only city slicker here.”

  “True,” conceded Kathy, “but remember, you’re the one who turned your back on Dublin, choosing instead the bohemia and allure of the west of Ireland.”

  This was not entirely accurate. Sarah had planned to do pharmacy at Trinity College in Dublin. Like her sisters. Like her father. Like her mother thought she would. However, when she didn’t make the grades, her mother decided that she should do science in Galway, following up later with a degree in pharmacy.

  “Yeah and I sure found bohemia in this pied-à-terre,” drawled Sarah.

  Everyone snorted with laughter at the notion that they’d landed in an artisan quarter of the compact college town. The reality was different. The clientele in the ‘Black Shawl’ pub below was a mix of elderly men in flat caps, fishermen, dock-workers, and labourers.

  “Give me some credit, this place isn’t that bad.” Ruth took offence at criticism of the flat. “It’s the best of what was left – there are some dives out there. Places with mushrooms, with mould on the curtains, with maggots. This is ideal – college in fifteen minutes, town in less, and it doesn’t take long to get to the clubs in Salthill.”

  Perfectly true, thought Kathy. Ruth had done a good job. None of the rest had taken the initiative to find accommodation. They’d agreed that sharing would be a blast, but no one had done a thing about it. Not until Ruth got on the case that is. She had rung the letting agents, she had come up from Kerry during the holidays to organise it all. Yes, thought Kathy, she was right. They should be grateful.

  There were drawbacks. They had to share their bedrooms. In addition, the flat itself shared a common entrance with the ‘Black Shawl’ pub below. The four students had to come in through the pub door, into a dingy passageway and past the door to the main lounge of the pub. They had to pass all the watching eyes to reach a flight of stairs which led to the dimpled glass door of their flat.

  The flat smelled malty like a brewery. Once inside for half an hour or so, the students didn’t notice. Stray cigarette smoke seeped through the floorboards from the pub below. But the girls didn’t care. They smoked themselves. Their Tupperware box with the weekly kitty money was often raided for cigarettes and filled with IOU notes.

  What Kathy liked about the flat was the sitting room. It had two big windows overlooking the harbour and the street below. Her lecture schedule wasn’t as onerous as that of her flatmates. Second-year psychology lectures were in the morning, so in the afternoons Kathy would install herself next to the gas fire, lecture notes on her lap, and watch the hub-bub in the street below.

  Lately, as she sat there she had taken to wearing her dressing gown and woolly hat. The fire was rationed. It ran on a meter with a coin-box and there was a kitty for the fire and the electric heaters.

  “I don’t mean to be a pain,” Charlotte had complained, “but can’t you study in the library or the reading room? It’s warm there. You’re chewing up the heating budget here.”

  “Too many distractions in the library,” Kathy had proffered by way of an apology.

  “Too many men, more like,” a disgruntled Charlotte had muttered.

  Charlotte had a knack of making her feel slovenly and self-indulgent.
Charlotte was an organised person. On her side of the bedroom wall, she had a neat lecture timetable, yellow sticky notes with her monthly budget, and a poster for the latest production by the Druid Theatre in town.

  All four were poor students, but in their poverty there was a sliding scale. Charlotte came in at the bottom. Kathy didn’t understand it. Charlotte’s dad was a local councillor on the county council. It was a good job, and yet as far as Kathy could figure, Charlotte’s fees were paid for by her brothers who had emigrated to the States. Charlotte got stuff from all her brothers.

  Ruth and Sarah both came from family businesses. Ruth’s parents owned supermarkets. She was never stony broke, never ‘couldn’t-afford-the-tampax-machine broke’. Ruth spent lots of Sunday evenings in the phone-box in the street below, cajoling her father to increase her allowance. He needed a detailed breakdown of what she was spending her money on. He’d grafted for it and he wanted her to be accountable for what she spent.

  Sarah’s parents owned three pharmacies in Dublin, one of which was ear-marked for her. The sweet thing about Sarah was that she was nicely discreet about the money thing. She complained about being poor like everyone else but her complaints never quite had the ring of the truth. She was always first to protest on cuts to student grants, not that she fell in to that category herself. She was a faux-poor student, but it was nice of her to pretend all the same.

  Kathy felt awkward about her own situation. She didn’t quite know what she should feel. Embarrassed? Maybe not embarrassed, she was after all entitled to her state grant. She doubted she would be in university otherwise. Her parents were small farmers. She thought her dad had laid it on a bit thick when the grant assessor had come to the house. He’d made her brother Lawrence drive his new car around the back of the hay-shed and the photographs of himself and Mam on holiday in Spain were taken down from the mantelpiece. Going to Spain was Dad’s idea. Mam had arthritis. Dad had felt it would cheer her up and it did. But there was no need for the grant assessor to know anything about Spain. These people knew far too much about everyone’s business. Nosy civil servant, he’d said after she left.