‘You’ve got to be careful who you get to mind your baby.’ Chloe pushed her plate away.
‘I agree, that’s why you have plenty of time to find someone by mid April, and sure look, if you like them, perhaps they could take over permanently,’ Austen said cheerily. ‘What about you, Tara?’ he asked, eyeing his elder daughter quizzically.
‘I’ll sort something, Dad,’ she said quietly. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ and he did feel a tad guilty. Tara, he knew, appreciated more than her sister did all the childcare Anna and he provided.
‘Now then, drink up and eat up,’ he urged, but he could see that his unexpected ultimatum had taken the edge off their appetites.
Austen sighed, spearing a crispy roast parsnip; this bloody recession had turned everyone’s life upside down. Just his luck it coincided with his and Anna’s retirement. As far as he could see his kids were more dependent on them than ever.
‘I hope you didn’t make them feel bad, or that they were a nuisance, Austen.’ Anna tried to keep the exasperation out of her voice when her husband informed her of his lunchtime discussion with their daughters. Austen could be like a bull in a china shop sometimes, she agonized, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. Tara in particular would feel the sting of his words. Chloe would, as always, think of herself.
‘I didn’t,’ he said crossly, thumping his pillow into shape. They had just got into bed and she was totally relaxed after her pampering sessions. Now there was the beginning of an atmosphere and he was getting huffy. Typical.
‘No need to get ratty,’ she retorted irritably.
‘I’m not getting ratty, you’re the one who’s getting ratty,’ he accused, his face sullen as he glared at her. ‘I simply explained that I wanted us to spend time together. What’s so awful about that, Anna?’ Austen demanded.
‘Nothing,’ she sighed. ‘It’s just not as easy as it used to be—’
‘That’s because you won’t put your foot down. You let Chloe walk all over you,’ he exploded.
‘Austen, I don’t,’ she exclaimed indignantly, stung by his accusation.
‘You do. You let her away with murder. She’s a grown woman, a mother. It’s time she learned to stand on her own two feet. You need to start looking after yourself more.’
‘Look, when Tara had her baby, I . . . we,’ she corrected herself, ‘were there for her. I have to do the same for Chloe. Be fair. And it’s hard going back to work and having to be separated from your baby, mister. Fathers don’t quite get that,’ she added tartly.
‘I’ve done my best for them. I’ve mucked in too,’ he snapped. ‘But I’m not going to mollycoddle them like you are and make myself ill from stress.’
‘Oh fuck off, Austen, and don’t be so dramatic,’ Anna snapped, switching off her bedside lamp and turning on her side away from him.
She lay fuming in the bed beside him, listening to him settle to read on his Kindle. The cheek of him, saying that she was mollycoddling the girls. She was helping them out like any mother would. Why did he not understand that she couldn’t just abandon them?
As the recession had worsened, and the banks had been on the brink of collapse, she and Austen had discovered in horror that a large chunk of their savings had vanished into thin air when their bank shares had plummeted.
In the months following those dark days Austen had withdrawn into himself and become angry and bitter. ‘I worked hard for that bloody money; I didn’t squander it and gamble it away like that fucker, Sean Quinn. Do you know, Anna, he spent one hundred thousand euros on a cake that was flown over from New York for his daughter’s wedding? That’s two hundred and fifty euros a slice! And now we’re paying for it and the millions he gambled to buy Anglo shares for which he gave his personal guarantee, which of course, he now maintains, doesn’t apply to him the way a personal guarantee would apply to the rest of us gobshites who lie down and let those banking bastards walk all over us. And we’ll be paying for the collapse of that bastard’s insurance company on our car insurance for years to come. You mark my words. And he thinks it’s OK to say he took a gamble that didn’t pay off and that’s it, we should feel sorry for him!’
His constant ranting and raving about it was doing her head in.
‘Look, there’s no point in being angry all the time, it’s only affecting your health. Let it go, Austen!’ she urged. ‘There’s hundreds of thousands of us in the same boat and it’s all relative anyway. There’s billions of people would love our first world problems,’ she’d tried to shut him up one day when, after watching the news, he’d started off on another tirade.
‘Let it go, just like that?’ He’d looked at her as if she was mad and shook his head. ‘How can you say that? Doesn’t it bother you in the slightest? The corruption, the lying, the brazen disregard for law and order.’
‘Of course it does, Austen,’ she retorted, ‘but I’m not going to have that energy swirling around my brain, taking all the good out of life. It’s happened, it’s happening all over the world. A spotlight is being shone on all this darkness and hopefully lessons will be learned and right-thinking people will come to prominence to lead us out of the mess we’re in—’
‘And if you believe that you’ll believe anything,’ he jeered.
‘I lost money too. My business has been hit hard. Lots of our customers can’t afford to have cleaning services now, so my income is dwindling, but I’m not going around whinging and moaning and wringing my hands, because we’re very lucky we have a roof over our heads and food on the table, unlike millions of others,’ she’d shouted, and he’d looked at her shocked, because Anna rarely shouted at him.
‘You’re right, sorry,’ he’d apologized brusquely and she’d burst into tears and walked out to the garden to compose herself.
It had been a turning point of sorts. Her husband had been less vocal, in front of her at any rate, with his rants at the TV when the news was on. He didn’t mention their financial losses as often, but she knew it niggled away at him and understood on one level why. The hunter had lost what he’d gathered. The wiping out of their nest-egg had emasculated Austen, who had always prided himself on his ability to support his family in a style to which they had never aspired in those early days of marriage, when they were living from pay day to pay day.
Anna understood more than he thought, but there was no point in living a life filled with resentment, anger and regret. They could adapt and give thanks for all the assets they still had.
She understood too, that it was only in Spain that Austen could put aside his bitterness. There was something about the easy, somnolent days in La Joya that induced a sense of wellbeing, and distance from real life in Ireland. If her husband had his way he would spend six months of the year out there.
She drifted off to sleep and woke around dawn to see the light lick along the top of the gold brocade curtains in their bedroom. She felt Austen move beside her and knew he was lying in his favourite position with his hand behind his head, staring up at the ceiling, ruminating on the day ahead.
‘Morning,’ she murmured, offering the olive branch.
‘Morning,’ he returned but at least he sounded calm and approachable.
‘Austen, please let’s not fight.’ She turned over towards him and put her arm across him.
‘I don’t want to be fighting, Anna,’ he said, looking down at her. ‘But I have a point of view too, and you’re very dismissive of it.’
‘What?’ She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.
‘You’re very dismissive of my viewpoint,’ he reiterated firmly.
‘Well I don’t mean to be,’ she said slowly, shocked at what he’d just verbalized. ‘How? Just tell me,’ she invited, inwardly tensing at what might be coming.
‘I . . . eh . . . well the thing is, I always feel that you put the girls and their needs first and not mine. You take their side always—’
‘Austen, I don’t,’ she protested.
‘You do it subconsciously. But you do
, Anna. Constantly. Chloe’s wedding for instance. I had very little say about what I wanted, even though I was whacking a hell of a lot of money out on it,’ he pointed out, and she sensed a deep running anger, still, even though the wedding seemed so long ago and she’d forgotten about it. ‘You took her side in everything and although we did manage to persuade her to bring the cost down, it was mostly her way or the highway no matter what I felt.
‘This January I really wanted you to come out to La Joya and you wouldn’t because of the babies. The same as last year. You tell me to go out on my own or go with my golfing buddies. That’s not what I want. Say it was the other way around and I was constantly telling you to go out on your own or with the girls, how would you feel?’ He looked intently at her, and in the brightening light of dawn she could see a hard, unfriendly glint in his eye that chilled her.
‘Well?’ he probed.
‘I suppose . . . I suppose I’d feel . . . rejected,’ she admitted.
‘Exactly, rejected, of no consequence, taken for granted, second fiddle, take your pick,’ he shrugged.
‘I’m truly, truly sorry, Austen. I never meant to make you feel like that, I promise you,’ she said earnestly, horrified by his accusations.
‘I know you don’t mean it, but that’s how I’ve felt in the last few years if you want to know the truth,’ he said flatly.
‘But why didn’t you say it to me?’ She sat up and stared at him. ‘Why haven’t you brought this up before now? Why have you kept it to yourself? That’s not fair, Austen. You always do that. You won’t tell me when things are bothering you, or talk to me about your feelings and emotional needs—’
‘You do enough of that for the two of us,’ he quipped sarkily.
‘Don’t be mean,’ she said, hurt. ‘That was uncalled for.’
‘Sorry,’ he apologized.
‘How do you think I feel now, knowing this is how you’ve been feeling for ages?’
‘This isn’t about you, Anna,’ he sighed.
‘It is, Austen! It bloody well is. It’s about me in so far as it affects our relationship. It’s about my failings as a wife. Your wife.’ She burst into tears, overwhelmed by his wounding accusations.
Austen’s demeanour changed instantly.
‘Anna, Anna, don’t cry. I’m sorry I made you cry. I was harsh in what I said, I’m so sorry,’ he apologized, drawing her into his arms.
‘But you said what you felt,’ she sobbed. ‘And you were right to say it, Austen. It’s I who should apologize. I never meant to make you feel second best, ever. You’re the most important person in my life.’ She gulped, her hair tousled, her face tear-streaked.
‘I love you with all my heart, Austen, I always have. Please, I beg you in future, tell me if . . . if you feel I’m neglecting you—’
‘Aw you don’t neglect me,’ he groaned. ‘You’re a great wife. I should have kept my big mouth shut.’
‘No, that’s what’s got us into a situation like this. Keeping your big mouth shut. You need to talk to me about stuff like this.’
‘I know. I’m sorry, I will in future,’ he promised.
‘Ah yeah, promises, promises,’ Anna replied, knowing that getting her husband to talk about his emotions was harder than pulling teeth.
‘Do you know why I want you to come to Spain so badly in April?’ He leaned on his elbow and studied her, running his finger gently along her cheek to wipe away her tears.
‘Why?’ she asked shakily.
‘I want to bring you to Seville for our wedding anniversary.’
‘No!’ she exclaimed, subdued, afraid she was going to cry again. ‘Really?’
‘Really,’ he echoed. ‘And do you know why?’
Anna shook her head.
‘Because I know you’ve always loved orange blossom. It was one of the first things I remember about you. We went for a walk in the Botanics when we were getting to know each other, and we walked past the orange blossoms and you stopped and inhaled the scent for ages, and you told me it was your favourite flower and I grabbed you and kissed you—’
‘Oh yes, I remember that,’ Anna exclaimed, absurdly pleased that he would remember that little romantic interlude. ‘How happy we were,’ she added, rubbing his arm and nuzzling in against his shoulder as the lump in her throat lessened and the pain of his wounding words eased.
‘And then you carried orange blossoms in your wedding bouquet, and wore that spray at the side of your hair to hold your veil in place, and I wanted to bring you to Seville for orange blossom season because it’s our wedding anniversary and we were very, very happy the day we were married, and in spite of what you might think, I can do the odd romantic thing,’ he said; and the old twinkle that she loved was back in his eyes and then they were kissing, and murmuring endearments, melting into each other’s familiar nooks and crannies to make love with a passion they hadn’t had lately.
Afterwards, when he’d gone down to make their tea and toast to bring back to bed, Anna lay snuggled against the pillows listening to the sound of distant traffic on the early morning commute and school run, thinking she could be lying in their bed in Spain, with the balcony doors open, listening to birdsong and the sound of the sea, and watching the morning sun rise in the eastern sky, across the Mediterranean.
She wished her husband understood that her longing to be there was as strong as his, but her bonds as a mother held her back from putting herself first. And, it seemed, from putting him first too.
She’d heard it said, If you can’t love yourself, you can’t love another. Just how did you get to the point of doing exactly what you wanted to do to nurture yourself, even if it meant discommoding others, she wondered.
And to do it without feeling guilty.
If she could learn that life lesson she’d be on that plane to Malaga so fast it would take her husband’s breath away, Anna sighed, listening to Austen whistling in the kitchen while he made the tea.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
April
ANNA / AUSTEN
‘I’m so glad we decided to come by train, Austen,’ Anna smiled at her husband, as they wheeled their overnight travel cases through the plate-glass doors of the imposing entrance to María Zambrano train station. They were taking the 9.15 AVE to Seville, and had left themselves enough time to have breakfast in one of the restaurants on the sun-dappled concourse.
‘It’s a great idea. Well done for thinking of it. You’re right; we’d have spent as much on petrol and parking as we would have on the tickets, and I believe Seville is a nightmare to drive in because the streets are so narrow. So ten out of ten, wife.’ Austen, looking tanned and healthy in his pale blue Lacoste short-sleeved shirt and cream chinos, flashed her a broad grin as he strode along beside her, hungry for his breakfast.
An hour later, relaxed and replete after their scrambled eggs and bacon, they laid their luggage on the security belt at the gate beside the dolphin-nosed, sleek white train that would bring them to their destination.
‘Impressive looking, isn’t it?’ Austen admired the AVE’s flowing lines, gleaming where the sun shone on the white carriages embossed with the smart purple strip that emphasized its aerodynamic contours – hardly noticing the lithe blonde in the skimpy shorts and low-cut halter neck who had boarded just ahead of them, Anna thought in amusement.
She was excited, looking forward to the journey inland across the Spanish plains. ‘One thing about Renfe, they leave on the dot,’ Austen observed a couple of minutes later when the train began to glide out of the station, and a young couple who had reached the gate too late stood forlornly watching it leave the station. It snaked towards the Sierras, gathering speed as it whizzed past the airport and left the suburbs of Malaga behind it.
The passage through the tunnels and carved gorges of the sharp, jagged-edged mountains was breathtaking and they sat entranced as each bend brought some new vista to be admired. The landscape changed as they left the coast and mountains behind them, opening out onto wi
de, fertile acres of vines, spread on either side of the tracks. The sky, blue and white like speckled Delft, seemed never-ending.
‘You can see where the recession has hit the small towns, can’t you?’ Austen remarked as they raced past a station, weeds and brushwood growing unkempt and unchecked. An old red-bricked factory building of intricately designed brickwork fallen into disrepair; houses boarded up and abandoned. It reminded Anna of something out of a spaghetti western.
An hour and eighteen minutes from when they left Malaga, precisely as advertised, the train slid smoothly into Cordoba Central.
‘We should do a day trip here some time. It has so much history, especially Roman history, which I love,’ Anna mused. ‘The two Senecas, the Younger and the Elder, came from here.’
‘I never knew that.’ Austen stretched his legs, hoping that no one would sit opposite them as passengers embarked while others disembarked onto the tiled platform. ‘When did the Moors come?’ he enquired, glad that his wife always did her research before visiting anywhere. He hated sitting at computers.
‘In 711 AD. But they were enlightened rulers and shared the St Vincent church for their religious services until they erected a mosque, seemingly. It would be nice to see that sort of thing happening in today’s strife-riven world.’
‘This is what I wanted for us, Anna.’ Austen reached over the table and took her hand. ‘To be able to go and meander around and soak up the history and the atmosphere of these spectacular cities and make the most of these years when we are fit and able and still fairly compos mentis.’
‘Compos mentis, speak for yourself,’ she laughed. ‘My marbles are gone with the wind, three times this morning I put my glasses down and couldn’t find them. And once they were on my head!’
‘Well reasonably, then,’ he teased as the train began to move backwards and changed tracks to loop back southeast to Seville.
Orange Blossom Days Page 28
