The Seven Secrets of Happiness

by Sharon Owens

Maybe she could get a refund, she thought to herself.

  And after a good long shower she finally started taking her anti-depressant medication and booked a much-needed appointment at the hairdresser’s. She’d get her roots done and about six inches chopped off the length.

  ‘I look a complete fright,’ she told the stylist. ‘Honestly, you’ll die when you see the state of me. No, you will! Okay, see you then, cheerio!’

  She lifted the midnight-blue handbag and threw it across the room in disgust.

  ‘Idiot man!’

  Then again maybe she would keep the handbag forever as a reminder of how out of touch she had become in recent years.

  ‘And this house could do with a bloody good clean,’ she wheezed, tossing her ciggies and matches into the kitchen bin.

  Eventually she decided to keep her packets of anti-depressants in the midnight-blue evening bag with the bright lemon lining. At least that way she wouldn’t forget to take the damn things.

  13. The Village

  Driving all the way down the wide grey motorway and then along the much more winding roads of Fermanagh, Ruby racked her brains with the effort of remembering. Her mother had always been a very private and refined sort of person. Never the type to giggle and gossip or go out boozing with the girls. Or use ‘bad language’. Or do silly things like flinging a burnt saucepan into the garden pond like Jasmine’s mother once had. According to Jasmine all the fish had died the following day after eating the bits of charred curry. No, Ruby’s mother was never the type to go making a show of herself in public. And that was why she’d stayed hidden away behind those dry-stone walls and those big heavy gates. Not because she was a depressive, reclusive, anti-social or snobby oddball, but because she was a supremely private person…

  ‘But she must be depressed!’ Ruby said aloud after a few more minutes spent deep in thought, arguing with herself as a soft blanket of silent rain enveloped her car. ‘She must be depressed on some scale. That’s why she didn’t come to Jonathan’s funeral last year. Okay, there was snow, but she could have come after. But she knew that I’d notice she was acting differently and that I’d say something to her… That I’d persevere until she admitted she was depressed. Oh, Dad, why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

  But she knew very well why. Her father hadn’t mentioned anything to her because he knew she was still grieving for Jonathan. Ruby’s father was absolutely Old School: boys did not cry and spouses did not go telling tales on one another. Ruby turned up the heat in the car and swallowed down a giddy urge to swing the vehicle round and go straight back to Belfast and her cosy apartment above the shop. She longed to dive under the quilted covers, drift into a blissful sleep and just ignore it all.

  Ignore them like they’ve ignored me this last year, she thought, feeling a headache beginning to take shape behind her eyes. Driving in the dark always gave her a headache. At least the snow they’d had this winter had cleared away. Oh, Mum. Poor Mum.

  For an entire year she’d been secretly furious with her mother for not being more supportive after Jonathan’s death. And all the time the poor woman was probably struggling with her own demons. Ruby had always felt that her father was a bit too accepting of his wife’s moods. A passive foil to her mother’s more overbearing nature… When all the time he must have been terrified that something like this would happen some day: that his wife would tip over into full-blown depression.

  God, it never ends, Ruby thought. Why can’t I just have normal parents for a change? To make up for not having a husband any more, or a child.

  Then the rain got heavier and Ruby was forced to concentrate on her driving. After three hours’ driving in total, and with her heart in her mouth for most of the way, Ruby carefully guided her old Audi through the large iron gates and along the narrow lane to the house. The grass track up the centre of the narrow road was overgrown and untidy. The trees also seemed not to have been clipped for many months.

  ‘Oh, Mum, this is a bit weird,’ Ruby said aloud. ‘Dad, what’s happened? What the hell’s going on?’

  And suddenly there it was, not so much a mansion as an oversized Irish farmhouse. The familiar grey walls with their moss and lichen spots sent a shiver down Ruby’s spine now as the house was lit up by the car headlights. She’d never liked this forbidding-looking building. It had always felt rather sinister to her as a child, as if the house had a resentful personality of its own. And it hadn’t wanted Ruby and her parents living in it.

  But tonight something was different. Even before she had parked the car and had a good look at the house Ruby knew it had changed. It had lost something of its austere nature and had somehow become slightly defeated instead. Mature weeds dotted the messy gravel, and the laurel hedges hadn’t been trimmed in ages. The curtains were not tied back in their usual symmetrical perfection. The doormat was sitting crookedly on the step and there was an empty cigarette packet lying by the boot-scraper. Ruby parked her car neatly to one side of the house, rang the doorbell, held her breath and waited.

  ‘Daddy?’ she said slowly when her father answered the door wearing an old cardigan and smoking a cigar. A cigar!

  ‘Ruby!’

  ‘Are you smoking cigars now?’ she asked him anxiously. ‘Or is it just for New Year’s Eve? Why are there no lights on? Have you had a power cut?’

  ‘Ah, Ruby love,’ he sighed gently. ‘What in the name of God are you doing here?’

  ‘Thanks a lot, Dad. It’s good to see you too.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

  ‘How did you mean it, exactly?’

  ‘You shouldn’t have come all this way without telling me first.’

  ‘Why not? It’s not a bloody embassy, is it? Do I need an appointment now to see my own parents? Where’s Mum?’ Ruby said, beginning to bristle. ‘It’s freezing cold out here. Aren’t you going to ask me in?’

  ‘Your mum? Well now, that’s the big question. Who knows what she’s up to?’ he sighed again. ‘Not me, that’s for sure. I’m only her husband.’

  ‘Right, that’s enough of this big, stoic act,’ Ruby said boldly, elbowing past her father and marching into the double-height hallway. ‘I want to know what’s been going on here. I want to know why you’ve not come to see me in a year! I want to know where my mother is. You and me are going to have a little chat, Dad. I think I know what’s wrong with Mum.’

  ‘Oh, I’m too tired for this, Ruby. I was awake all last night,’ he protested. But it was no use. He shuffled backwards from the front door and swung it shut with one foot. Ruby was already halfway down the hall.

  ‘Daddy, what’s all this about?’ Ruby gasped when she got to the kitchen and witnessed the scene of devastation within. Empty pizza boxes were stacked in a teetering pile by the bin, empty cigarette and cigar packets lined the windowsill, and several cheap lighters lay in the fruit bowl. Dirty plates were scattered everywhere, the curtains were closed and crumpled, the sink was smelly and ringed with old cups and sticky spoons.

  ‘Dad, this kitchen is a pigsty. And it reeks of smoke.’

  ‘Well, what did you expect? I didn’t know you were coming,’ he said hopelessly. ‘If I’d known you were coming, I’d have tidied up.’

  ‘Dad, until this moment I would’ve said it was an urban myth that men can’t tidy up after themselves. But this is ridiculous! Could you not have walked ten feet outside to the bin? Could you not have opened a window to let some fresh air in? Has Mum left you or what?’

  ‘Yes, Ruby. She has left me. If you must know.’

  ‘What? Are you kidding me?’

  ‘She left me three weeks ago.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Dad?’

  ‘You did ask,’ he said, tapping his cigar ash into an empty pizza box.

  ‘Dad, don’t do that. You’ll set the house on fire. Now I was only joking about Mum leaving you. Do you mean to tell me she really has walked out?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, yes.’

  ‘But you’re six
ty-eight years old, for God’s sake. She’s sixty-five. You can’t just split up at your age. You’ve made it all this way. You can’t just give up now!’

  ‘All the same, apparently we have. She’s not here at any rate. Two minus one equals one, Ruby. As the man says, do the maths.’

  ‘Oh my God, this is just too weird.’ Ruby sat down gently on a kitchen chair and closed her eyes. ‘Okay, I’ll be calm, I promise. Just tell me what happened.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell,’ he said quietly, waving his cigar in a hopeless sort of gesture. ‘One morning she was cleaning the house as usual. Sweeping out the ashes in the good room. And I asked her, was she not a few days late putting up the Christmas decorations? And she just stood up, threw down the brush and dustpan and told me she was bored to death.’

  ‘Bored to death? Those were her exact words?’

  ‘That’s what she said, yes. Bored to death. So I said to her, well, let’s go out for a drive or something. And have lunch in town. And she said no. I’m not just bored with the housework, she said. I’m bored with everything.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Yes, everything. That’s what I said as well. Bored with everything? And she said yes. She was bored with Christmas, bored with me, our marriage, the house, the village… her entire life to date. And, well, everything.’

  ‘Christ and all the angels. What did she do then?’

  ‘She went upstairs, packed a small suitcase, phoned a taxi and left me.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. Where did the taxi take her?’

  ‘To the airport.’

  ‘And you didn’t try to stop her?’ Ruby spluttered.

  ‘Not after she said she’d have me arrested if I did.’

  ‘You’re winding me up!’

  ‘No, I’m not. I rang the taxi firm after she’d gone. They said she’d asked to go to the International airport. You know, up near Belfast?’

  ‘I know where the airport is, Daddy.’

  ‘Aye. No real rush on her, they said. They said she hadn’t decided yet where she was going so there was no big rush.’

  ‘Oh my God. And you haven’t heard anything since?’

  ‘Nothing. Not a squeak from her! Look, I’m not too worried. I mean, we both have close relatives in London. I’ve a hunch she’s gone to stay with one of them maybe. Have a wee holiday on her own, like?’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Ah, Ruby. Because I thought she’d just go to London for a couple of days and do some Christmas shopping and then come home again. I didn’t think she was really going away for good. I still don’t know if she has gone away for good. She could be back any minute. She’s always been a bit moody, as you well know.’

  ‘So you were on your own all over Christmas? The whole time?’

  ‘Yes, I was indeed. And I was fine.’

  ‘But when I rang on Christmas Day you said Mum was cooking the dinner. You said to me that she said hello.’

  ‘Ruby, I lied to you, pet.’

  ‘Oh, Dad. What are you like?’

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you. It wasn’t too bad in the end. I had a few drinks and watched a film on the telly. Went for a long walk by the lakes. She’ll come back when she’s got the restlessness out of her system.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘She does this from time to time. Though usually she only goes to the seaside. A guesthouse in Galway or Donegal, or maybe Dublin for a bit of shopping… Five days was the longest she stayed away before this. And she never took her passport before. I didn’t even know she had a passport actually. We’ve never been abroad.’

  ‘How long has this sort of behaviour been going on, Dad?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. A few years.’

  ‘How long exactly?’

  ‘What are you now? A policewoman?’

  ‘Tell me, Dad.’

  ‘Forty-odd years?’

  ‘Fucking hell.’

  ‘Now, don’t be swearing, Ruby love.’

  ‘Did it never occur to you that Mum might be depressed?’

  ‘Of course it occurred to me. I’m not completely dense, Ruby. But what could I do? She wouldn’t go to the doctor. She said they would only fill her so full of tablets that she’d rattle. Or else they’d stick her in the asylum and throw away the key. We always managed with her moods, Ruby. It wasn’t perfect but we always managed.’

  ‘They don’t lock people away any more, Dad,’ Ruby said gently.

  ‘They used to, in our day. Hundreds of them were shut away in that big, ugly asylum in Tyrone. Especially any women who were bad with their nerves, the poor souls.’

  ‘Yes, but that was fifty years ago.’

  ‘Well, your mother had an aunt who was committed once. After she had a baby, it was. Probably it was only post-natal depression or whatever. But you don’t forget something like that in a hurry. Last we saw or heard of Cissy, she was roaring her head off in the doctor’s car. She died in that place. Of heart failure or so they say. My guess is they gave her too many tablets.’

  ‘Oh my God! Listen to me, Dad. Things are different these days. They don’t commit people any more just for being depressed. Look, I’m going to stay and help you now, okay? We’ll phone everybody we know and try to find out where Mum is. Right? We’ll open the windows in the morning and light the fires to freshen up the house. And then we’ll dust and vacuum so it all looks lovely for when Mum gets home again. We’ll buy some flowers for the hall and maybe an artificial Christmas tree. You’ll never get a fresh one at this late stage. And then we’ll persuade Mum to get some proper help for her depression.’

  But Ruby’s father was barely listening.

  ‘No, Ruby. No action whatsoever will be taken. She may not be truly depressed. She may just be restless. Nobody is happy all the time unless they’re simple, Ruby. And to hell with the tree! Christmas is over now anyway.’

  ‘Fair enough on the decorations. But no action will be taken? What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘We’ll do nothing at all, Ruby. I don’t want you to do anything or touch anything or say anything to anyone.’

  ‘But why not?’

  ‘Because when your mother comes back I don’t want her to know that you’ve been here. I just want her to come back and tidy up the house by herself and then we’ll carry on as normal. That’s why I’m leaving all this mess. So she’ll have something to do when she returns. She’ll be all guns blazing with the duster when she comes back. And she’ll need some housework to do. That’s usually how it goes.’

  ‘But this isn’t normal at all, Dad. This is completely weird behaviour,’ Ruby said, her eyes filling up with tears.

  ‘No, it isn’t. It’s the way your mother and I like to do things around here, that’s all.’

  ‘Dad, please let me ask her doctor for some advice! Or maybe I should ring the police.’

  ‘Not a bit of it, I absolutely forbid ringing the police. She’s a restless woman, Ruby, that’s all. She’s far too intelligent to be stuck out here in the countryside with nothing to do but dust and polish all day long.’

  ‘But she never wanted a career, did she?’

  ‘Oh, she did surely but she never got the chance to go to college,’ Ruby’s father said flatly. As if that would explain everything! ‘When we were young it was only the children of the gentry that could afford an education. By the time I came into the money it was too late for your mother to go to college.’

  And then Ruby began to lose her temper.

  ‘Dad, to use one of your own phrases, would you ever change the record ? Don’t even start on me with that old chestnut about the gentry getting all the chances. It wasn’t the famine era, you know? It was only the late seventies. Mum could have gone back into education any time she wanted. You had plenty of money and only one child to bring up. You could have hired a nanny for me, and a housekeeper for the rest of it. That’s a lot of nonsense to say Mum never had any chances. She’s just punishing you for being
so passive and nice and understanding.’

  ‘Stop it, Ruby.’

  ‘I won’t stop it. She’s out of control.’

  ‘I was lucky that she married me. I was lucky that she agreed to settle out in the sticks.’

  ‘Oh, please, it’s so pretty here in Fermanagh. This gorgeous, big house! Well, it could be perfect if you’d paint the outside of it and put in a few lights along the drive. I don’t know why you didn’t do it years ago, but never mind that now. You could have moved closer to the village or even into Enniskillen town. Or you could have moved to Belfast to be near to me. Your only child, remember? Mum could have trained as a nurse or a doctor or anything.’

  ‘Ah no, you have to do these things when you’re young. Not when you’re thirty-five and all the other students think you’re only an old eejit trying to join in their fun. And she would have been thirty-five by the time she’d got all the school exams she needed to get into university.’

  ‘Oh, what’s the point of even trying to talk to you, Dad? You’re just as bad as she is. You’re both daft, if you ask me. All of this diva stuff is just the result of the two of you being idle rich and bored stiff and plain silly. The grounds haven’t been touched in months so obviously this situation has been going on for some time.’

  ‘What would you know about it?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Away up in Belfast with your own fancy business and all your swanky friends?’

  ‘What? I don’t have any swanky friends… Dad, are you mad altogether? Just my old neighbours and a few friends from school that I see for coffee about once a year. Do you even know your own daughter at all? Have you forgotten that I lost my husband last year? You didn’t even ask me how I coped with the funeral.’

  ‘I didn’t like to bring it up.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I didn’t want to upset you, Ruby.’

  ‘Dad, Jonathan is dead. He died in a car accident. Dad, are you listening to me? On Christmas Eve, it was. I’m never going to forget that as long as I live,’ Ruby said angrily. ‘Ah, what’s the use? You’d rather die in agony than have a straight conversation with your only child. I really don’t know why I bother. I should phone the Samaritans whenever I feel like a chat. I really should!’