At a Time Like This

by Catherine Dunne

  I know I felt anxious, as neither Chris nor Robbie had said anything up until then. It had never occurred to me that they might be jealous, but it was something I had to consider. I needn’t have worried. Chris got up from the table and walked around to where I was sitting. He lifted me up in the most enormous bear-hug I have ever had. His voice was choked.

  ‘You’re the best Mum,’ he said. ‘Just the best. I can’t wait to meet her.’

  It was like he had taken the cork out of a bottle after shaking it. We all began to talk at once. There was laughter, and Chris, the gentlest of my three sons, even shed tears. The evening blurred into the fizziness of warmth and love and family.

  Robbie went out and bought champagne. I thought he still looked pale when he came back. Perhaps, as the eldest, he was the most taken aback. Believing he was the first and then finding out he wasn’t.

  Are you sure you’re all right, love?’ I asked him as he insisted on topping up my glass again. I was beginning to feel quite giddy.

  He smiled. ‘Of course. It’s a huge surprise, but it’s great news. Just great. I’m really looking forward to meeting Megan.’ There was a little pause, and I let it hang, in case he wanted to ask me something, something delicate. I had not mentioned Eddie, did not want to mention the madness that youthful passion brings with it and the destruction it can wreak on so many lives.

  But all he said was: ‘What day did you say she’ll be arriving in Dublin?’

  ‘On Sunday,’ I said, ‘her flight gets in at about eight in the morning.’ And then I remembered. ‘Oh, Robbie – that’s when you leave for Italy!’ For a moment, I was horrified at myself. ‘I forgot!’

  He nodded. ‘I know. I was just checking the dates. Don’t worry, we’ll work something out.’

  I looked at him, knowing that my face was full of dismay. ‘She’ll only be here for less than a week. Oh, Robbie, you can’t miss it! Can’t you defer your scholarship, or something? Go next year instead?’

  He squeezed my hand. ‘We’ll work something out, Mum. I promise. Enjoy it and stop worrying.’ His voice had the same determined ring as his father’s, the exact same tone as when Frank had decided something. I thought it wiser to say nothing more just then.

  But I did worry, of course I worried. I was frantic. What would I do if he wasn’t there? Right then, studying the finer points of architecture seemed to me to be nothing compared to rebuilding my family. Of course, I’d been proud of him when he won his scholarship, but this was different. This was something nobody could have predicted. I needed all my children with me, all of us pulling together on such a momentous occasion. But I trust Robbie to do the right thing. After all, he has had good example all his life.

  We stayed up late, Frank and I, talking. Robbie went to bed first, and I was worried about how shaken he looked, how tired. It was as though something seismic had happened to him, too – and I suppose it had. The return of a sister you never knew you had has to throw all sorts of certainties into turmoil, doesn’t it?

  ‘Stop worrying, Mum, I’ve told you,’ he said again, as he kissed me goodnight. I didn’t like the edge to his voice, but given the night that was in it, I let it go.

  ‘Goodnight, son,’ said Frank. ‘Something to stop us all in our tracks, isn’t it? God is good.’

  But Robbie didn’t answer. After he left the room, Frank told me to relax and enjoy my news. He patted my hands, the way he used to do, when we knew each other first and I was in need of so much reassurance. He insisted that, scholarship or no scholarship, Robbie would eventually do the right thing. He just needed time to come around to it.

  And my friends – will they do the right thing?

  It has been so very difficult, keeping this news from them all over the last week. But I have felt very cautious, even though my heart and soul knows that that letter is from Megan, my own flesh-and-blood daughter, and that she has sought me out and wants to meet me. But my old pessimism has crept in from time to time: what if she changes her mind at the last minute, gets cold feet, decides to leave well enough alone? What if her counsellor persuades her to wait a bit longer – and I wasn’t so sure I was happy about her having a counsellor in the first place. Weren’t her Mom and Pop enough to help her through this decision? And if anything did go wrong, how could I tell everyone my extraordinary news and then maybe have it snatched away from me all over again, making things worse than if it had never been in the first place?

  I think that I only truly believed in the fact of Megan’s arrival once we spoke on the phone for the first time last night, once I heard her decisiveness – and her curiosity – for myself. She will be in my home in three days’ time. And that means that for me and my friendships, tonight is the night. Will they accept, Claire and Maggie and Georgie, that I had to keep secrets? Will they all celebrate wholeheartedly – for once – the fact that I, too, have a life, have had a life in which things happen?

  Time will tell, as my mother used to say. Time will tell.

  I’ve often wondered what that actually means. Maybe tonight we’ll all find out.

  6. Georgie

  So. I still have some loose ends to tie up.

  By the time Maggie receives the letter I posted at Frankfurt airport, she’ll already have begun to put two and two together. I have long experience of her intuition. Sometimes, our ability to understand each other is nothing short of startling.

  Frankfurt is a nightmare, by the way. It’s the sort of airport that can’t make up its mind whether it’s a transit point for passengers or a clearing house for terrorists on active service. The checks take for ever: all around me people were complaining about the multiple searches, the ambiguous hand signals of the security staff, the bad signposting. I have to say that I had a moment of regret that I had opted to collect my luggage, rather than having it sent direct to Florence. For an instant, the risk of having my things go missing seemed preferable to the interminable waiting. After almost two hours, I snatched my bag off the carousel under the nervous, watchful eyes of armed policemen. Not to mention the barely restrained German Shepherds. By the time I’d made my way to the relative sanity of the VIP lounge, I’d decided never again. Not through Frankfurt.

  Anyway, back to Maggie. I hope she knows that I would never let her down. We’ve been friends ever since our Junior Infants’ teacher, Mrs Lee, put us sitting together that first morning. We have always been the ‘grandes dames’ of our group: ours is the friendship that will endure beyond all the others. What I love most about Maggie is her loyalty. I got her into trouble so many times when we were young, and yet she never complained, never minded taking the punishment meted out to both of us, even though she deserved none of it. When we were teenagers, we got cleverer at getting away with things. Maggie was blessed with an innocent face: I was not. Her wide-eyed look of dismay retrieved many a dodgy situation. I can remember, too, the way her energy would fill a room. She drew people to her, with that magical combination she has of warmth and lively good humour.

  ‘We make a good team, you and I,’ she used to say. And we did: there’s no doubt about it. She attracted the boys, moths to her flame. Then I filtered them. I got rid of the creeps. The only time the system failed – one of our greater ironies – was with Ray. He approached her by stealth, when I wasn’t around. By the time I met him, Maggie was already hooked. I’ve never felt his charm myself, but others have. She was snared quickly, too quickly: burnt by the combination of his dark good looks and his obvious need of her. The problem was that he needed other women, too, and Maggie has always been too forgiving. If anybody understands that, I do.

  ‘He’s a shit, Maggie, and you know it.’ I remember one time wrenching the duvet off her bed, refusing to let her lie down under his bad behaviour. It was the morning after one of our many parties at number 12, Rathmines Road. I’d watched Ray the night before, as he’d sidled over towards Lorraine, a schoolfriend of Claire’s who had managed to insinuate her way into our company. She was spilling out of her dres
s and Ray’s eyes were alight with all that was promised by those full, high breasts, those long legs. He was like that, our Ray. He was never one for the understated. And while Maggie was someone whose appearance always made an impact, on that night no one could have held a candle to Lorraine.

  Besides, Maggie and Claire were busy handing out plates and cutlery and paper cups of red wine, so poor Ray felt abandoned, or so he later claimed. Nevertheless, I saw that he’d awaited an opportunity to make a beeline for Lorraine: he hadn’t had the time to feel at a loose end. He lit her cigarette, listened to her in that grave, attentive way he’d managed to cultivate: head to one side, his gestures mirroring hers, flattering, gentlemanly, radiating – of all things – kindness. And then, wham! The trap was sprung, all steel and style and no substance. I watched them leave, too, Ray’s hand under Lorraine’s elbow to steady her as they walked out the front door of the flat. And the strange thing is, Maggie knew it: she knew that Ray was no good. He wasn’t any good for her, he wasn’t even good to her. But he kept her with him by a canny combination of neediness, repentance and empty promises. And she kept going back for more.

  Even after that awful time with Claire, ten years ago now, Maggie still went back to him, still forgave him. That was the one and only time our group fell apart. I’m still not sure how we all came back from that. Perhaps we never have. Perhaps we just poured salt on to that too, ignoring the stain as it spread.

  On the night in question, the night at my house, neither Maggie nor Claire had offered to bring anything to help me out, which should have been enough to warn me that something serious was afoot. But I was busy with other matters. My daughters, Carla and Lillian, rebellious nine-year-olds, were refusing to settle. They demanded to be let stay up later and they fought me with everything that lies in a twins’ armoury. It was way past their bedtime and I was out of patience. All I wanted was to join the others downstairs. By the time I came back to the dining room, the twins were sobbing piteously in their beds, comforting each other in their own secret language of exclusion. But by then, I was too tired to care.

  The soup bowls were still on the table, and the discarded remnants of bread. I was surprised: one or other of us usually cleared the débris, loaded the dishwasher, no matter whose house we were in. And Maggie was smoking like a train. I noticed, to my astonishment, that Claire was holding a cigarette too, shaking, between her long fingers. Claire hadn’t smoked since she was a student; and even then, she had done it without conviction. I didn’t bother to look at Nora. Whatever was of interest was happening right at that moment, between Claire and Maggie. Nora was merely the observer: that was and is her mission in life. I sat and poured myself a glass of wine and took a large sip before I broke the silence. ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

  ‘Ask Claire,’ said Maggie. Her voice was tight. Even in the candlelight, her face looked crumpled, the skin around her eyes creased and papery.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, and turned towards Claire. I was struck, as always, by her loveliness. That halo of hair, the perfect skin, those luminous eyes. Whatever was churning inside her at that moment was not reflected in the perfection of her pre-Raphaelite face.

  ‘So, Claire? What is it? What’s going on?’ I tried to keep my tone neutral.

  She tapped her cigarette against the ashtray and I noticed that her whole body was trembling now. ‘It’s . . .’ and she shook her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it, please, not here. Not tonight.’ She looked across the table at Maggie, her eyes all mute appeal.

  ‘Well, I want to talk about it,’ said Maggie. Her tone verged on the belligerent. That was not like Maggie, not like her at all. ‘I’m among friends – at least, I always thought I was.’ She crushed out her cigarette and immediately reached for another. Her long red fingernails gleamed in the candlelight. I took a deep breath and refilled all our glasses.

  ‘Come on, Claire,’ Maggie said. There was a note of false jollity in her voice, as though cajoling a truculent child with whom she was losing patience. ‘How long has it been going on?’

  I closed my eyes, briefly, and breathed quietly for a moment. Ray. Maggie’s husband, Ray: it had to be. In flagrante, again. But with Claire this time?

  ‘There isn’t anything . . . going on. There never was anything going on. It was just the one time, months ago, and it was a mistake. My mistake.’ Now Claire’s voice began to crack, stifling the sobs that were gathering at the base of her throat. ‘I didn’t tell you because . . . it was nothing, that’s all. It was a stupid, selfish mistake and I didn’t want to hurt you.’

  Maggie put down her wine glass and glared at her. ‘You sleep with my husband and you don’t want to hurt me? What is it you were trying to do, then – become my friend for life?’

  Claire winced and slumped back in her chair. I wanted to intervene, but I knew that I couldn’t. She looked over at me and I could almost see what she was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing. Was the blame to be all hers: didn’t Ray deserve even a little? And how could you tell one of your oldest and best friends that you were – what? – drunk and incapable when their errant husband found his way into your bed? That’s how it had to have been: that, or something very like it. How else would Claire have become entangled with someone like Ray? I know Claire. She wouldn’t have touched him with a bargepole. Talk about Beauty and the Beast.

  I glanced over at Nora. Her mouth was opening and closing like a stranded fish. Just for that moment, I felt sorry for her. She was completely out of her depth: this was not something that kitchen towels and Saxa salt could help to mop up and discard in yesterday’s newspaper.

  Then I spoke. ‘Are you sure it’s over?’ I directed my question at Claire, my tone harsher than I intended.

  ‘It never began. It wasn’t a relationship, it wasn’t even an affair; nothing like that.’ She looked at us pleadingly, weeping openly now. The tears made her look fragile, almost transparent: if anything, even more alluring. I sympathized wholeheartedly with Maggie. Such wounded beauty must have been really hard to take, given the circumstances. Claire’s voice became quieter, more controlled. ‘There was just the once, last Christmas. I’d had too much to drink and I was very upset . . . over . . . something.’

  So. I was right after all, I remember thinking. Ray took advantage of her. Nevertheless, she’d been a foolish woman for letting him. I wondered would she ever be any different? Would she never learn how to keep men in their proper place: in a place defined by her, not one that allowed them to spill their messy lives all over hers, leaving a tsunami of grief and hurt and loss in their wake?

  She bit her lip, shook her head. None of us asked her: what was the something that had you so distressed? What were you so upset about that you’d betray your friend, all your friends? She acknowledged our silent refusal to be curious and forgiving and swallowed that punishment, too. ‘It doesn’t matter what it was. But Ray was . . . kind. He comforted me.’

  I’ll bet he did, I thought, the little bastard. But I said nothing. Not yet.

  ‘I told him that it had been a terrible mistake, that we shouldn’t . . . that I didn’t . . . couldn’t . . .’

  For one hysterical moment, I wanted to laugh out loud. How could Claire call Ray a worthless piece of shit that she wouldn’t be seen dead with, and not insult his wife of all those patient years?

  ‘I met him once, afterwards, just the once to tell him that . . . he said we needed to talk. I . . . told him I wouldn’t see him again.’

  ‘But not before you slept with him for the second time, isn’t that right?’ Maggie was standing by then, drawn up to her full height of five foot one. Luckily, Claire remained seated. And she didn’t reply. I knew there was something she wasn’t telling. After all, this was Maggie’s moment. She’d earned it. She deserved it.

  I was thinking: Ray just had to tell her, didn’t he? Couldn’t help himself. Had to give his wife chapter and verse, add insult to injury. I could imagine him whining and whingeing, confessing everything
and begging forgiveness all at the same time. But also, in some obscure way, boasting, smiling smugly to himself. I’m so sorry, dear, a moment of sheer madness – but, gosh, see how attractive I am to women? I just can’t help myself. Even your best friends can’t resist me.

  Just then, I noticed Nora was about to speak. Her face was prim, her mouth a fine, disapproving line: default mode, as I used to call it, despite protests from Claire and Maggie. I raised my hand. ‘Don’t, Nora. Don’t say anything.’ I could feel her look at me, feel the white heat of her resentment boring into the back of my head as I turned to face Maggie. But I didn’t care. It was time I took charge. After all, it was my house. Somebody had to do something, to salvage whatever there was left to be salvaged. ‘What do you want to do, Maggie?’ I could see that she was about to crumble. But she didn’t. I allowed her to interpret my question in any way she chose.

  ‘I want to go home,’ she managed finally. She stood up and spoke with dignity. ‘I want to go home to my husband. And my family.’ And then she walked, slowly and with great care, towards the dining-room door. ‘Now, please – call me a taxi,’ and she closed the door quietly behind her.

  Remembering all of this, Maggie’s exit, Nora’s fussing, Claire’s weeping, I can still feel the ache that filled the room that night, as each of us contemplated all the intertwining losses and griefs and half-truths that we would have to wade through in the coming months, perhaps years. We tried to tread cautiously at first, but nothing worked. It took two years – well, two years and three months, to be exact – for this rupture even to begin to be healed. And the really sad thing was, we all knew that Ray wasn’t worth it. Ray was, and always has been, a serial adulterer. We knew it and guarded it and sat on such knowledge and never mentioned the war. What hurt Maggie most, I think, was the fact that now her husband’s infidelities were out in the open, infiltrating that safe and comfortable existence that she loved to share with her friends. He had finally tainted the only part of her life that had ever been completely hers.