At a Time Like This

by Catherine Dunne

  How could I possibly tell someone like Nora, someone so moral and upright, someone whose life has followed a clear, straight ascent, that things are not so tidy for all of us? Abortion and Nora? Not even in the same sentence.

  And Georgie? I don’t think the abortion would faze her, but my longing to be a mother would. I think she’d see it as a reproach to her. It was no secret among us all that Georgie had never found motherhood easy. I remember how much she had once upset me by referring to her twins, Carla and Lillian, as her ‘mistake’. They were about three at the time. Even more shocking was her expression as she said it. She meant it.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said. ‘You have no idea what having children can do to your life.’

  No, I thought. I don’t. I’d only just started down the long road of trying to find out. But I wasn’t going to tell her that. Not after an admission like the one she’d just made. And that’s how Georgie has got away with so much, over the years. We don’t challenge her enough.

  I feel that in many ways, Nora may be the most honest of all of us. She endures Georgie’s scorn in a way that I’m not able to. Nor is Maggie. There are too many old loyalties there, too many years between them for Maggie to tell Georgie that there might be some things she doesn’t like about her. But Nora is firm in her views, even firmer in her disapproval of Georgie. And she’s prepared to show it. I admire her for that. In ways, I wish I was more like her.

  Whatever else we say about Nora – and we say a lot – her credentials as a mother are faultless. Maggie and I are both agreed on this. Nora and Frank are capable, devoted, excellent parents. Watching them makes me feel that the old-fashioned ways work. Not a popular view these days, but Frank and Nora’s definition of themselves as traditional, solid, no-nonsense Father and Mother has produced the most stable family unit I’ve ever known. Frank brought home the bacon and Nora cooked it. That’s how things were, that’s how they were supposed to be in the self-contained universe of Noras and Franks. We’ve often wondered how ‘a dry old stick’ – Georgie’s term – like Frank managed to father three handsome, articulate and clever sons. If Nora wished for a daughter, she has never said.

  Her sons are her delight, she tells us, ‘my boys’ who make her life worth living. Robbie must be nearly twenty-five now – he was just a new baby the night the four of us made our pact. Now he’s an architect, all six-foot four of him, with a winning combination of all his mother’s and father’s best features. Some sort of happy genetic accident must have gone on there. More his father’s physique than his mother’s, he’s slim and dark and gorgeous. Only one of those qualities, it has to be said, was inherited from his father. DNA randomness has to account for the dark and gorgeous. He does, however, have Nora’s brown eyes and sallow skin.

  The second boy, Chris, is at Trinity and he is studying, I believe, to be a social worker.

  ‘I’m just so proud of him,’ Nora gushed at us when he’d told her of his choice. ‘All my boys are so good, so unselfish.’

  I thought Georgie might throw up at that. And on that occasion, okay, I can’t say I blamed her.

  Matthew, ‘my baby’ as Nora calls him, to his face and to his obvious embarrassment, is still at secondary school. Once he finishes his Leaving Cert next June, Nora has declared her job to be done. She’s already talking about going back to work.

  ‘Back?’ scoffed Georgie. ‘What does she mean, “back”? Madame Stepford has never worked a day in her life.’ I have to admit, I can’t see it either. Frank is fifty-five now and looking forward to an early retirement. Matthew will be taking over the business. I can see Frank wanting more time with Nora, not less. Anyhow, all of them together, all five of them as a unit, make me believe in family again.

  Maggie has not been so lucky, of course, and continues not to be lucky. I can hardly complain about Ray’s infidelities without seeming hypocritical, but the strain of all those years of hope and disappointment is definitely showing. She talks to Georgie a lot more than she does to me, for obvious reasons. And that’s fine by me. Her kids are good, though. Eve and Gillian are both now at UCD and Kevin is the same age as Nora’s Matthew, just about to be unleashed on the world. He’s quiet, from what I can see, and shy. The girls are bundles of energy, just like Maggie used to be.

  And then there’s Georgie’s daughters, Carla and Lillian. Their mother’s ‘mistake’. Lovely girls, I’ve always been very fond of them, but I get the sense that they gave up on their mother years ago. Pete’s the anchor parent there, no doubt about it. A good man, dependable and caring. Faithful. I have never voiced this, not to anyone, but Georgie’s marriage surprised me. She dumped Danny the year we left Trinity; now that was a good move. There’s only so much cocaine a body can endure – Danny’s, I mean, not Georgie’s. He stuffed a fortune up his nostrils, that lad. But they had been together for four years. I think Georgie did love him. Less than a year later, though, she called to tell me that she and Pete were engaged.

  ‘I wanted to tell you first, Claire. After all, you were the one who introduced us!’

  I was indeed. I remembered the night well. I knew that Georgie was looking to expand her business and I knew that she was hoping Maggie would join her. I had first come across Pete when the board of Irish-Style was hoping to float some new ventures. Pete had done the business and I hosted a small party at home afterwards to celebrate the magazine’s new and improved financial status.

  Naturally, I invited Georgie. I thought that she and Pete might be able to work something out for Georgie’s boutique, ‘Oui Two’. I liked him, and I encouraged his interest in Georgie. When I say I liked him, it was just that. I didn’t find him particularly attractive, but I knew that both he and Georgie were at a loose end, romantically speaking, and thought they might share a few pleasant dinners. That’s all. I certainly didn’t expect anything more to develop between them. And not at the speed with which it did. When I voiced my surprise, and I wish I’d been able to hide it better, she was trenchant in her defence of their engagement. This was serious stuff, she kept telling me. Never mind the romance. Even then, her attitude unnerved me. I thought that, perhaps, the lady doth protest too much.

  I often wondered if she had chosen Pete so that she might shine more brightly. Or maybe she was still on the rebound from all that drug-fuelled ecstasy with Danny. Who knows? She never talks about Pete, and I wonder if things there can be what they seem to be – ordinary and uneventful and lasting.

  So there you have it. The Gospel according to Claire. Mind you, I’ve got some things spectacularly wrong in my time, and no doubt I will do so again. No matter what, the four of us women still get a buzz out of each other’s company, and that can’t be bad after twenty-five years. We’ll all gather again this evening, this time around my table, and we’ll celebrate a whole quarter-century of friendship. I know that while the routine of the evening might be predictable, it will be neither quiet nor dull. I think I’ll settle for that.

  8. Georgie

  So. Two days have now passed since the taxi driver hoped my day wouldn’t be ‘too sad’. Two days since the check-in clerk hoped I’d have ‘a nice life’ – or at least, that’s what I heard her say.

  Last night, I had a call on my mobile – one that broke the rules, but nevertheless. It reassured me, after a fashion. He can be very determined, this lover of mine, very firm in his views. Yes, there is a problem; yes, there may be a delay. But it changes nothing. Early or late, he will be here. I must be patient. I must wait. There are things, he said, that even I cannot control. Would I trust him? Yes, after all we have been through, I will trust him. I have no alternative.

  And so, after my bath, I slept long and peacefully and awoke feeling refreshed. I spent this morning with Paola, shopping. We filled the large freezer in what used to be the stables. We also bought things like torches and candles to have to hand for when the power cuts happen, as they will: or so she assures me.

  I couldn’t help remembering Maggie’s power c
ut in her new cottage in Leitrim on the weekend we spent there back in January. I came very close on the Saturday night to telling her how things in my life were poised for change, but something kept holding me back. Maybe it was that old debt to her that I was still conscious of. I continue to be aware of all that I owe her for her teenage loyalty, and for so many other times in between. I didn’t want her knowledge of my new life to bring her punishment. And I suspected that it might.

  Instead, I marvelled to myself at the similar trajectories of both of our lives – something of which Maggie is still unconscious. But there are some . . . circumstances around that modest cottage in Leitrim that she has just bought, I am sure of it. They will bear fruit at some stage in the near future. As for me, in my less-than-modest villa, I don’t think that I have left too much to chance. But time will tell, as Nora used to say – probably still does. Time will tell.

  Paola asked me yesterday over lunch, almost shyly, how long ‘il signore’ intended to stay this time. I looked at her in surprise. I’d forgotten that she didn’t know. ‘For ever,’ I said lightly, with a smile. ‘Per sempre.’ I think she was satisfied with that. She never pries, never shows inappropriate curiosity. Nevertheless, I have told her that when ‘il signore’ does arrive, we shall fend for ourselves for the first week or so. I suspect that she might have gathered that already.

  I wondered this morning what her private thoughts must be. I received at least half a dozen text messages while we were shopping together, and each of them delighted me. I feel free enough here not to pretend; there is no need to control my responses. Nevertheless, Paola smiled at each insistent beep. I answered a clutch of messages when we stopped for lunch, not able to hold off any longer. I excused my lack of politeness: I assume the etiquette of texting is similar in Italy to what exists in Ireland. In other words, when you are at lunch in somebody else’s company: don’t.

  But she waved her hand in the air. It was a gesture that was both conspiratorial and dismissive of my worries. I’ve managed to tell her in my halting Italian that, once next week is over, I shall contact her to establish whatever new arrangements will suit us best. In the meantime, naturally, I have reassured her that her wages will continue to be paid. Her gratitude when I told her that was touching.

  For ever. Per sempre. That is what I was mulling over two nights ago as I made dinner for the last time in my suburban Dublin home: the meaning of ‘for ever’ and the fragility of all the promises that we make. I used to think in absolutes: this is good, this is bad, this is true, this false. Years ago, while I still clung to the belief that things could work out differently, I used to yearn for enough faith to believe that now might be bad, but tomorrow would be better. Part of me would long to have the solidity of black and white certainties back again, the comfort of the things that hold fast. But the fact was that my life was already being lived amid the murkiness of shades of grey. I just didn’t realize it. It felt as though my only constant was friendship. It, after a fashion, lasts, although its contours shift and change. All the rest is smoke and mirrors. Nothing is for ever.

  ‘What’s for dinner, hon? I’m starving.’ Pete’s question the other evening startled me back from questions of faith and friendship to the fact that I had been pushing a lumpy white sauce around the pan for some time without noticing. I loathe cooking, always have done. The tyranny of the evening meal is something I have always resented.

  I stopped stirring and turned to look at him. Tall, still slim despite the tendency towards a beer belly, which he works very hard at keeping in check, and grey-haired in a distinguished, academic sort of way. Thou art Peter and upon this rock. The thought came unbidden and startled me. He began to chop parsley for the sauce, taking over as he so often did. Solid, decent, dependable Peter. Rocklike in his husbandly devotion and his delighted fatherhood. I had the grace to feel sad just then. Not guilty any more, just sad.

  ‘We’re having some salmon and the roasted vegetables left over from yesterday’ I said. The girls love roasted vegetables. Lillian does all the preparation and chopping and is delighted to take over the kitchen from her mother. Her mother never demurs. ‘Will you mash the potatoes?’ I continued poking at the lumps in the sauce, but to no effect. They refused to soften.

  Pete put both hands on my shoulders and his thumbs worked their way into the bones at the back of my neck. I stopped resisting almost at once and he took the whisk from me. He began folding the parsley into the bubbling whiteness. I watched as he worked his magic. He rescued the sauce, smoothed and refined it, just as he had been able to rescue so many other things in the early years.

  ‘Get Carla or Lillian to set the table,’ he said. ‘I’ll mash the spuds in a minute.’ He gestured towards one of the kitchen chairs. ‘Why don’t you sit down? There’s a glass or two of that nice Chilean left over from yesterday. It’s in the fridge.’

  I retired from the fray. Lillian agreed to set the table and provide dessert, if Carla loaded and unloaded the dishwasher. A born negotiator, I’ve always thought. And a young woman who loved cooking. I’ve never got that, as the young people say. Never understood it. Nora was the only other domestically obsessed woman I’ve ever known – and I have no idea how the gene of cooking and kitchen competence ended up in Lillian’s DNA. It didn’t come from me.

  I watched the twins last night. I stored up pictures, multicoloured memories for later.

  ‘You okay, Mum?’ asked Carla. Pete and Lillian were clearing the table after we’d finished our main course. I looked at her soft, open face, dark eyes, long hair caught up into an untidy, fetching bun. I’ve always felt that bit closer to Carla than to her sister – maybe that’s because she was born first. The twenty minutes that elapsed between her and Lillian’s more difficult birth forged something different between us, something strong and clear, bright as precious metal.

  ‘I’m fine, just fine.’ I stroked a strand of escaping hair and tucked it behind her ear. ‘All okay with you?’

  She nodded. ‘Yeah. We looked at some more flats today. There was one that Lillian really liked. I’m not so sure. But she said I could have the bigger bedroom with the en-suite, so I’m tempted.’

  I smiled at her. ‘Why her sudden generosity?’

  ‘’Cos it’s cheaper than the one I like, and on a direct bus route to UCD. But I’m holding out for a while. She’s not the only good negotiator in this family’ And she winked.

  I looked at her in surprise. Carla has always had that ability – to say or do something that takes me aback, that shows how she learns and absorbs things all the time. But she does it quietly, without any of Lillian’s showiness. I had to laugh at her expression and said something like ‘That’s my girl!’ but I was thinking, again, how superfluous I now was to her life, to all their lives. Or maybe that was just my own rationalization, something I wanted to believe. Who knows? Who cares? I am past agonizing. All I know is that somehow, almost without my noticing, my fractious twins have become eighteen-year-old women, feisty, self-assured and full – as Maggie used to say – of piss and vinegar.

  ‘Ta da!’ Lillian emerged from the kitchen with her customary fanfare. She balanced a tray above her right shoulder with four dessert bowls and an enormous pavlova. The cake had sparklers positioned at each corner, spitting tongues of tiny fire. She laid it all on the table in front of me. ‘Just to wish you bon voyage, Mama,’ she said, pronouncing it as ‘Ma-maw, ‘and to say how terribly we’ll all miss you, yet again.’ Her tone was artificial, waspish.

  That startled me. I thought I caught something fleeting in her expression, but it was gone, whatever it was, just as soon as I saw it.

  ‘Now, Lillian,’ drawled Pete, ‘you know that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.’

  She looked at her father, all wide-eyed and innocent. ‘But Pa-paw, you know that we can’t manage without her.’

  ‘Horseshit,’ he said. His amiable expression never altered. ‘You’ve been managing without both of us for years. You guys have now reached
the stage of being able to buy and sell both of your parents.’

  Carla and Lillian grinned across the table at each other. Once again, I saw that twin-style complicity, that steel-like closeness that, as children, had even manifested itself in the creation of their own obscure, private language.

  ‘And have been wrapping us around their little fingers for eighteen years,’ I said. ‘You’d better be able to manage, come to think of it – now that you’ve decided to leave the bosom of your family’

  Lillian spooned dessert into bowls, making sure the portions were scrupulously equal. It was a hangover from childhood, this insistence on fairness. As toddlers, the twins used to squabble over cake and dessert, each sharp-eyed as they regarded the portion destined for the other. Nothing would convince them that one had not been short-changed, the other favoured. So I devised a simple system: one cut, the other chose. Thus a talent for precision was born, and in the event that mistakes were made in the cutting, the other twin had the advantage of choosing the larger portion. End of problem.

  Carla popped a large strawberry into her mouth. ‘Time to move on, Mother. You always said the day would come.’ Her words were muffled and made her pronouncement sound distorted.

  ‘Don’t speak with your mouth full,’ Pete said.

  Carla stuck her tongue out at him, a gesture from childhood that had always got her into trouble. But this time, neither of us rose to the bait.

  Lillian turned to her sister. ‘You can speak any way you like, once we move to Donnybrook.’

  Carla inclined her head, the gesture a noncommittal one. I felt a surge of admiration for her silent assertiveness, her unwillingness to give way under pressure.

  ‘I thought moving out of home meant putting away the things of childhood – not continuing to blow raspberries, or in this case strawberries,’ Pete observed.