Her Revolution

by Gemma Jackson

  Finn sipped her tea. “Oisín, do you have no memories of living in a building site when you were little?”

  “I vaguely remember following you around begging to be allowed paint a wall or something.” Oisín shrugged.

  “That will do for a start.” Finn yawned. “Oisín, I’m really tired – can we continue this conversation another time?”

  “Sure thing, Mum.”

  Oisín left, feeling slightly hurt at the abrupt dismissal.

  Finn waited to see if Ronan would be sent in to question her. When no knock came to her door, she went into the corridor to collect fresh linen for her bed. It took a great deal of effort on her part not to turn on the computer system and spy on her menfolk.

  “Have either of you boys seen my white shirts?” Patrick was standing directly outside the locked master-bedroom door. “I’ve an interview with someone from the RTÉ Guide this morning. I need to look my best.” He grinned and waited. Nuala would never to be able to resist that. She’d run out and put her hand on his clean shirts, showing her superiority in all things domestic. He didn’t care, she could be as superior as she liked about her skill at domestic chores. Just so long as she did the bloody chores.

  Finn rolled over, looking at her bedside clock. Seven in the morning. Patrick had never been very considerate about others’ sleeping habits.

  “Have you checked your wardrobe, Father?” Ronan stood at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at Patrick. He knew what his father was trying to do. After the talk Ronan had held with Oisín late into the night he didn’t think his father was going to win this round.

  “Of course I’ve checked my wardrobe! But who can ever find anything your mother puts away?” Patrick made his voice shake with sorrow as he projected towards the bedroom door. His voice was his fortune. He knew how to use it to great effect.

  “I suggest you look again, Father.” Oisín appeared in his bedroom doorway. He crossed his arms and glared at his father. How could the man not know how serious this situation was? Had he always been so totally self-obsessed?

  “You should both be up and dressed. You need to have breakfast before leaving the house.” That would shift Nuala. Patrick smirked. She was a fanatic about a well-cooked breakfast in the morning. She’d soon be up and jumping, if not for his sake then for her children.

  To Patrick’s amazement there was no sound of hurrying feet behind the bedroom door. Was the woman really going to lie in bed while the men in the house got ready for work?

  Finn ran the water in the shower. She would not leave her bedroom until Patrick left the house.

  Patrick slammed the door so hard behind him as he left the house that he was vaguely surprised the glass didn’t shatter. His sons had left to get the bus into town. He didn’t have the time to drive them around. That was Nuala’s job.

  Finn almost fell to her knees and kissed the carpet when Patrick’s car drove away. Remaining in her room this morning had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done. The temptation to jump back into being a domestic drone had been tremendous.

  She unlocked her bedroom door and almost crept out onto the landing. Her breath was being forced in and out of her lungs like a bellows. She pushed sweat-dampened hair out of her face.

  She’d done it. She’d held firm against outrageous temptation.

  The breadbin held only stale crusts. She’d have cereal this morning. She opened the kitchen cupboard – two boxes of cereal stood on the bottom shelf. She took a box in each hand and almost screamed. They were both empty. Why did men do that? Why did they return empty boxes to the cupboard?

  She opened the fridge. There was milk at least. The kettle boiled while Finn tried to find something to eat. Surely Patrick and the boys had shopped while she’d been away?

  She kept bread in the freezer for emergencies. She walked into the utility room, trying not to notice how untidy it was. Boots and coats were thrown over every surface and some had fallen to the floor. For the first time in her life she stepped over the clutter.

  The storage freezer was covered in discarded damp clothing. Finn swept it off and onto the floor. Someone needed to start taking better care of their stuff. She gritted her teeth and pulled up the freezer cover. Here was the answer to at least one of her questions.

  The freezer was empty of all of her carefully prepared meals. How on earth had they managed to eat all of that food in ten days? The frozen pork products she kept on hand for preparing an emergency full Irish breakfast were gone. Not a sausage remained. A lone loaf of sliced bread sat in the bottom of the freezer. Finn pulled it out and let the lid drop back into place. She wondered if she should unplug the freezer. She wasn’t going to fill it anymore.

  She put two pieces of bread into the toaster.

  She opened her preserves cupboard only to discover that her men had depleted her store of homemade jams and preserves too. The cupboard that had been stuffed looked miserable with only a few richly coloured jars sitting around. She grabbed a jar, not needing to look at the label.

  “OK.” She’d discovered the benefit of her habit of talking aloud to herself over the last few weeks. Somehow hearing things said aloud made everything clearer. “I need to make a list of things I want to get done – I have to check out those houses in Bray.”

  Finn sipped her tea. She couldn’t take another morning like this one. Not without giving into the temptation to jump right back into her old ways. Tomorrow she might even manage to get to Bray in time to watch the sun come up over the ocean. She’d enjoy that. She hurried into her home office to fetch a pen and pad. She wanted to make a list of things she needed to achieve.

  “First and foremost: money.” She dropped back into her kitchen chair, pen poised. She wanted to open an account in her own name. She needed to take charge of her own finances. Finn Emerson, Businesswoman, she wrote on top of the page with a sad smile. If only she could turn herself into that person with a stroke of the pen.

  She didn’t feel good about taking money from Patrick’s accounts. She wasn’t fulfilling her role as a wife and mother. But she had no choice at the moment. She needed her own funds. How long did it take to open a bank account? She didn’t know. There was a great deal she didn’t know. She’d been a housewife and proud of it. Sad to finally understand that she’d been married to the house, not the man.

  “What was it they said in the old days? ‘My pockets are to let’? That was it. Well, all I’ve got in my pocket now is dust. I’ll need money for petrol and DART fares. I need to get ready to go to the bank.”

  Finn stood, refusing to wallow in negative shite anymore.

  She rinsed her own dishes and put them in the dishwasher. She firmly avoided looking at the small pile of dishes sitting on the work surface. She needed to make a list of rules for this house. She would not be the slave anymore nor was she willing to live in a tip. It was time everyone living here learned to lend a hand in the everyday chores of life.

  Chapter 15

  “Do you have identification?” The bored bank clerk was trying very hard not to allow her opinion of the customer in front of her show on her face. How many times and in how many ways would she have to explain the same thing to the woman before she understood and moved along.

  “I have my driver’s licence and the credit cards I’ve already shown you.” Finn wanted to sink through the floor. She didn’t exist as a person. She had no credit record in her own name. She was a Mrs and only that.

  “Your papers are in the name of Mrs. Patrick Brennan.” The clerk had said the same thing twenty times. The woman was married to Patrick Brennan off the television and radio. What had she to complain about? She should try sitting here having to deal with idiots all day. “You want to open an account in the name of – Finn Emerson.”

  Finn was Patrick Brennan’s wife. Every piece of paper she had was in the name of Mrs. Patrick Brennan. She hadn’t even bothered to keep her own Christian name.

  The clerk sighed. The queue behind this awkward custome
r was growing. The floor manager was glaring at her from behind the glass walls of her office. Let her come out and deal with this woman.

  “Thank you.” Finn had been aware of the crowd of frustrated bank customers lengthening behind her.

  What an idiot she was. She needed to stop and make a realistic examination of her circumstances. She didn’t have the price of a cup of coffee saved anywhere under her own name. She was a non-person, no name, no address, no credit record, no money. She needed time to absorb the change in her status. The shock of being treated as a non-person by the bank clerk had left Finn reeling.

  “I’m terribly sorry!” Finn exclaimed as she bumped up against another person in the local café where she’d gone for a pot of tea.

  “It’s OK – no harm done.”

  “I am sorry.” Finn raised her eyes to look at the other woman.

  “Nuala? Nuala Brennan?”

  “Yes.” Well, she’d been that woman for an awfully long time. She couldn’t refuse to answer to that name overnight.

  “It’s Maggie, Maggie Spencer.” The younger woman waited to be recognised.

  “I’m sorry?” Finn had never met this woman. It wasn’t unusual for people to approach her when they knew she was married to Patrick Brennan but this woman seemed to expect Finn to know her.

  “Perhaps I should have said Margaret Upton?”

  “Oh, yes, of course! You were married to Charles Upton for a time.” Finn almost bit her tongue in half. Was she looking at her own future? Charles Upton was a producer on several of Patrick’s programmes. The woman in front of her was younger than Finn but she looked worn and tired. She had deep dark bruises under her eyes. Her hair was badly cut and her clothes were hanging on her body.

  “We’re blocking traffic,” Maggie said. “We should find a table?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  A minute later they were unloading their trays onto a corner table.

  “How have you been, Margaret?” Finn asked politely when they were seated.

  “I prefer to be called Maggie these days.”

  “And I’m Finn!”

  Maggie smiled and leaned forward, pushing her untidy hair out of her face. “Finn, if I’m being nosy and rude please tell me to butt out.” Her elfin features were sincere, her caramel-coloured eyes staring into Finn’s. “I’ve seen the pictures in the tattoo-parlour window. I’ve heard the gossip running around the village. You look like a woman who has lost herself or perhaps I should say a woman trying to find herself?”

  Finn was dismayed to realise that she was so obviously a woman in crisis. “I think lost is the right word.”

  She would never have talked to a relative stranger like this in the past. She’d always been terribly aware of Patrick’s celebrity status. Patrick had impressed upon her that anything she said or did could be used against him. But if she didn’t open up she was going to drown. She needed help and Margaret Upton – no, Maggie Spencer – seemed to be the answer to her prayers.

  “I seem to be floundering.”

  “I can see the change in you – hard to miss.” Maggie smiled. Nuala Brennan with an almost shaved head of red hair and an outfit she wouldn’t normally be caught dead in was a strange sight. Even if Patrick Brennan had not been broadcasting his marital problems to all of Ireland, she would have known something was very different in Nuala’s – no, Finn’s – life.

  “I refuse to wear beige and pearls anymore.” Finn was wearing what were skinny jeans on her. They had belonged to Ronan when he was about thirteen. Thank heavens her two boys had had their growth spurt early, otherwise she would be walking around in jeans that only reached her knees. A dress shirt of Patrick’s hung loose over the jeans, cinched in at the waist with one of Patrick’s more colourful neckties. Her own stylish black boots completed the outfit. She’d felt good when she examined her image in the bedroom mirror.

  “I like the new look.” Maggie laughed.

  “Thank you.” Finn pushed her red fringe away from her forehead. “I’m struggling to find my way.”

  “One does in this situation.” Maggie glanced at her watch. Her children were with her parents, she had time. “As a woman who has been there and has the scars to prove it, can I help you?”

  “I’ve discovered I’m nobody!” Finn almost wailed. “I don’t exist.”

  “Tough, isn’t it?” Maggie Spencer wished she’d taken a pound for every time she’d seen this reaction in a newly separated woman.

  “You know?” Finn was desperately trying to remember anything she’d ever known about Margaret Upton now Maggie Spencer.

  “Let me refresh your memory.” Maggie knew Finn would have very little knowledge of her own situation. “I stormed away from Charles Upton, leaving the family home with the clothes on my back and my twin girls on my hips.” She shrugged, remembering her younger self-righteous self.

  “What had happened?” Finn asked.

  “I caught Charles with his pants down one too many times. He was having fun with the girls’ nanny if you can believe such a cliché.” Maggie sipped her cooling coffee. “I left the family home that very moment, full of righteous indignation.”

  “What else could you do?”

  “If I’d known how tough it is to be a single mother I might have thought twice about walking away.” Maggie wondered how much she should tell the woman staring at her with lost hurting eyes. “I know now I should have made the cheating snake leave the house. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.”

  “I’m so sorry, Maggie.” Finn hadn’t even been aware of the situation with Maggie and her children. Charles Upton was still a welcome guest in her own home. She was ashamed of her ignorance of the world around her.

  “I’m afraid it’s a common enough story.” Maggie shrugged. “I, too, quickly discovered I was no-one. I’d never worked outside the home. I married Charles far too young. I was in love and wanted to be with the only man in the world for me. I refused to listen to anyone trying to give me advice. They were all jealous of my good fortune, I reckoned.” She shook her head over her own hard-headedness. “So, I had no one to blame but myself. When I left Charles I had no home, no income, no credit record, no money and no rights. I’ve had to fight for everything I needed to survive. The twins have suffered a great deal because of my actions.”

  “Charles’ actions surely,” Finn snapped.

  “Yeah, but we women are great at taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in our world.” Maggie picked up her empty cup. “I need more coffee. Can I get you another pot of tea?”

  “I’ll get them.”

  Finn hurried over to the counter. Maggie had information she needed. The younger woman seemed prepared to share what she knew and God knows Finn desperately needed all the help she could get. A cup of coffee was a small price to pay.

  Back at the table, Maggie took both of Finn’s hands in hers. “Finn, the situation you are in right now makes a liar and a thief out of a person.” Then she sat back, waiting for Finn’s reaction.

  “I beg your pardon?” She had never lied or stolen anything in her life. What on earth would cause her to start now?

  “You will learn that if you follow all the unwritten and written rules and regulations honestly, you’ll be back as Patrick’s obedient wife before you can blink. The good advice of friends and family will practically push you back into your place.” Maggie sipped her fresh coffee.

  Fin thought of Emmet and Rolf. “Maybe I’m luckier than most in that respect. I’m just back from France. My father and his partner live there. They were very supportive. But, then, they’re not conventional people, I guess.”

  Maggie looked at her. “So you’ve been away for a while?”

  “In recent weeks, yes.”

  “Oh.” Maggie seemed to hesitate. “So, do you know that Patrick has been broadcasting your domestic problems to all and sundry?”

  That came as a shock. “No. I didn’t know.

  “Well, you need to know.” Maggie began to
tell her about Patrick’s daily discussions on his radio programme concerning women going through the menopause. He had been getting more airtime than he’d ever received by telling the world and its mother all about ‘his’ problems. He’d been a guest on one of the afternoon shows on television several times in the past weeks. Women were lapping up his opinion of ‘their feminine problems’. Patrick was playing the poor suffering misunderstood male to the hilt and Irish audiences loved it.

  “I can’t care,” Finn said when Maggie had filled her in. She wondered why she was surprised. Patrick had used their home life in his broadcasts for years. Why should this be any different?

  “No, you can’t care, not if you want to truly find your own feet,” Maggie agreed. “So do you want to tell me what had you looking like a kicked pup just now when we met?”

  Finn related her wasted morning at the local bank. She’d been made to feel two inches tall and a nuisance. She knew she wasn’t stupid – she could learn how to function in this new world. The woman in front of her had experience and advice. Finn was darned well going to take note of everything Maggie said.

  “I have to pick my children up from my mother’s house,” Maggie said when Finn had explained her difficulty. “I don’t have time to go into everything you need to know right now.” She checked her watch. She was really pushed for time.

  “Of course, you need to get about your business.” Finn swallowed her disappointment.

  “No,” Maggie smiled. “I’m not dumping you to drown.” She gathered up her belongings. “Angie Lawrence cleans for you, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes.” Finn wondered what Angie had to do with anything.

  “Angie is the woman you really need to talk to.”