The Gift of Friends

by Emma Hannigan

  She never dared think she could end up actually living on the road she admired so much, but fate stepped in when Betsy took a chance on Noel, a simple and quiet man her mother declared ‘boring’. But after a run of selfish and rude men who were only after one thing, Betsy found Noel’s gentlemanly ways to be a breath of fresh air. He did anything and everything she wanted and nothing was ever too much trouble. He may not have been the funniest or the most dapper, but he was always polite, and she could just tell he’d make a devoted husband and would always put her first.

  Theirs was a swift and joyful courtship. They were married within eighteen months of meeting. That first meeting happened on Kingfisher Road, where Noel lived with his parents. Betsy had been walking the dog, staring longingly at the houses as usual, when a young man sitting on a wall had asked about Leila, her labrador. They got talking, and an hour had gone by before she knew it. Betsy had to run home, dragging the poor dog along behind her. She hadn’t thought she’d see Noel again, but the following week he was again sitting on the wall and he smiled and stood up when he saw her coming along. And that was that. Her mother rolled her eyes when she announced her engagement, but Betsy was sure in her heart that Noel was for her. If she was honest, the fact that he lived on her dream road made him even more special, but it was the man himself she fell in love with – and had kept on falling more in love with over their decades together.

  In those early days, Noel had talked fondly about the neighbours and how kind they’d been to him and his father when his mother passed away. She’d died when Noel was a teenager and his descriptions of the community on Kingfisher Road sounded like something from another world to Betsy. Her neighbours were a grabby, selfish lot who looked after themselves and nobody else. Her mother fell out with everyone and wasn’t well liked. So Betsy had never experienced the sort of community living that Noel talked about, and she longed to be a part of it.

  They were waiting for a house to come up in a new estate ten miles from Vayhill town when Brian, Noel’s father, asked them to come and live with him. ‘Don’t spend good money on rent when I’m rattling around this great big house on my own. I’d be thrilled to have your company.’

  It was a good idea, but Betsy wasn’t sure how it would work out in reality. She needn’t have worried. They got on so well that he begged them to cancel the estate house and stay at Mount Liah. ‘I’ll happily do you a deal,’ Brian had said. ‘If you stay and allow me to live out my days here in my beloved home, it’ll be yours when I go.’

  Betsy agreed wholeheartedly and proceeded to throw herself into being the life and soul of Kingfisher Road. She organised tea parties, set up a book club and maintained a list of trusted tradespeople that she gave to newcomers as part of a welcome hamper. Before long, she was a key member of the community. Brian lasted two years after their marriage, but then a heart attack took him from them. Betsy had grown so fond of Brian that she was more upset about his death than she was when her own parents passed away.

  They didn’t have a big wedding purely because Betsy didn’t want her whole family turning up. None of them was happy for her, and they weren’t shy about saying it. Instead, they were seething with jealousy and wanted to scratch her eyes out. Her older sister, Maggie, had actually told her that she wasn’t worthy of Noel and that he’d see through her before long. ‘I give that marriage a year,’ Maggie had said to her sourly, and mentally Betsy had severed her connection to her sister.

  Betsy’s feeling was that she could either sit and cry and allow them to ruin her wedding, and possibly even her future, or she could give them two fingers by showing them how wrong they were. So she had a small wedding, invited only her parents and didn’t care what her clutch of siblings thought about it.

  As an only child, Noel was used to being treated like a precious jewel. All he knew was love and affection and the fact that he was cherished. He passed those sentiments on to Betsy, and she thrived in the warmth of his love. At first she made some effort to keep up with her own family, but after her first wedding anniversary they stopped talking to her. To her surprise, Betsy found it a blessed relief.

  ‘I feel as if I’ve been freed from some sort of negativity prison,’ she told Noel. It freed her so she could concentrate on being Betsy Cox, wife of Noel Cox, residents of Kingfisher Road.

  They longed for children and eventually, when Betsy was almost forty and had long since given up hope of hearing the pitter-patter of tiny feet, Graham came along. Everyone was thrilled for them when Betsy announced her pregnancy and the other women on the road were there to advise and help her. Betsy thought her family might have a change of heart now that there was a grandson, but they stayed away and showed no interest in Graham. She went so far as to invite them to the christening, but not one of them showed up. She hadn’t cared a jot before, but now she was upset by the thought that Graham had twenty-eight cousins he might never meet.

  She made one final effort and dropped in to visit Mona, the sister closest in age to her. They’d shared bunk beds when they were kids and she felt she could trust Mona more than any of her other sisters. If there was a way back in, Mona would be the one to help her find it.

  She couldn’t have been more wrong. All she got from Mona was the unedited version of what they all thought of her.

  ‘You’re a turncoat, Betsy. You always thought you were better than us. Look at you living on that road, acting all high and mighty with your dinner parties and your fancy clothes.’

  ‘Who told you I have dinner parties?’ she’d asked in disbelief. ‘Not that it makes a blind bit of difference if I have my neighbours over.’

  ‘Barney, your postman?’ Mona spat. ‘He’s still one of us, but he says the shite you come out with about the evenings you do have . . . You’d swear you were royalty. You’re from Heather Greens and the day you walked out of here thinking you were better than us was the day you lost your place in this family. Don’t come around here again, do you hear me? And don’t bother sending any more of them swanky cards with printed photos of that pug ugly child in them. We don’t want to know.’

  Betsy held her tears at bay until she was well away from the twitching curtains of Heather Greens. She wouldn’t let them see how they’d upset her. But once home, she collapsed on the sofa in floods of tears. As always, Noel was there to soothe her and tell her that he loved her. He didn’t put her family down, he simply reminded her that they had their own family now.

  ‘You, me and baby Graham. That’s more than enough for me,’ said Noel. ‘You stood by me when my dad was dying and you nursed him as if he were your own. You’ve never been anything but wonderful to me. I’ll look after you for as long as you’ll let me.’

  So that was that, Betsy was now alone in the world except for Noel and Graham, and she poured herself into caring for them. Graham was a cranky baby who never slept for more than five hours a night until he went to playschool. He was in trouble from the start. They were called in to see almost every teacher that came across him. Their remarks were all the same. ‘He’s rude and disruptive and picks on the weaker ones in the class.’

  They were mortified by his behaviour and begged him to try and think before he acted, but sadly he went from bad to worse. As he matured and hit the teenage years, things escalated. He was brought home in a squad car on more than one occasion, and poor Betsy felt it was her duty to apologise to the neighbours for bringing such embarrassment to the road.

  She’d host coffee mornings when she’d offer a wide selection of home-baked treats that she’d almost killed herself preparing.

  ‘If I could have a bit of hush,’ she’d say, delicately tapping the side of her teacup with her spoon. ‘I wish to apologise profusely on behalf of myself and Noel for the disruption caused by Graham two nights ago.’

  The women fell over themselves telling her it wasn’t her fault, that she’d done everything right in raising Graham, that he was simply going through a bad phase and he’d be past it soon. Betsy nodded and nodd
ed, but she worried that the truth was that he’d inherited her family’s gene pool. As the years rolled by, Graham resented his parents ever more and told them they stifled him.

  ‘I don’t want you both putting me on a pedestal and treating me as if I’m a prize cow at a mart.’

  ‘We don’t want to make you uncomfortable, son,’ Noel said patiently again and again. ‘We love you and we want what’s best for you. That’s all.’

  As soon as he’d finished his last exams in school Graham was gone, off to Australia with a mate for a gap year of travelling. The mate came back at the end of the year, but Graham stayed.

  While Noel and Betsy were heartbroken at his decision, there was a collective sigh of relief on Kingfisher Road when news got out that Graham wouldn’t be back. Through no fault of their own, Noel and Betsy had created a bad egg in Graham, and the general consensus was that Australia was welcome to him.

  In time, he’d married a dreadful woman called Tasha, who made it very clear they were not welcome to visit after the wedding.

  ‘She’s literally stolen our son,’ Betsy had sobbed into Noel’s chest. ‘How will we cope without him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Noel. ‘For the first time since I met you, I feel I’ve failed you.’

  ‘Darling, you’ve never failed me.’

  ‘But Graham is gone and I can’t fix it.’

  Noel’s sense of failure proved to be a wake-up call. Betsy realised that Graham was gone, that it was his own choice and that she and Noel couldn’t take the blame any longer. He was twenty-five years of age now and they’d done right by him, so she decided that from now on, she was going to loosen her grip and just accept this was who he was. Graham had been gone almost six years, living his life as he wanted to live it. But she still had Noel, and that was what mattered. So just like when they were first married, she threw herself into caring for Noel and cherishing him, and enjoying his love in return.

  Betsy shook her head as she let herself into the house and went through to the kitchen to put down her shopping. What was she like, roving back over her years? Sometimes the memories just picked her up and carried her off and it was like she wasn’t here at all. Maybe that’s how she missed the sale of number ten – she wasn’t paying enough attention. She set about boiling the kettle to scald the pot and put the tasty cake on a serving platter, resolving in her head to let the past be the past and to focus on the here and now. She smiled to herself, thinking that she sounded like Nancy now, full of determined optimism!

  ‘Is that you, my love?’ Noel’s voice called from the study next door.

  ‘Yes, Noel. I’m back again. I’ll have some tea and cake for you in a few minutes.’

  ‘Perfect timing!’ he called back.

  Betsy believed in doing things right, so she always set the table properly, with napkins and the correct cutlery. She moved the vase of flowers she’d cut from the garden earlier to the centre of the table, enjoying the pretty red dash of the dahlias. She used Noel’s mother’s wedding Delft, a gorgeous blue-and-white patterned set that made food look even more tempting. She set out her bone china teapot and matching cups and saucers and stood back to assess the scene. Yes, it was just right.

  She heard a beeping sound coming from behind her and was confused for a moment, then laughed at herself. At sixty-three years of age, keeping up with technology wasn’t her forte, and her phone was still a bit of a novelty. Noel teased her for being half scared of it. He was probably right – she had a fear of pressing a button and breaking it somehow. She fished it out of her bag and saw that it was a text from Graham. Her stomach dropped – bad news? He so rarely got in touch, it always made her as anxious as she was delighted.

  Hi mum – u free to tlk? I call in 10 mins?

  Betsy stared at the phone in shock. He never, ever called. A few texts a year was the most she could hope for, and now this. She gripped the phone tightly, sure that something awful had happened. Ring asap, she texted back.

  Noel walked into the kitchen. ‘This looks wonderful, darling, I was just—’ He stopped when he saw Betsy’s face. ‘What is it? Has something happened?’ he said, his face full of concern.

  Betsy shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Graham just texted to ask if he could ring me, to talk.’

  Noel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Right. That’s unusual. What do you think?’

  Betsy shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’

  The phone started to buzz in her hand and she looked at Noel.

  ‘I suggest we sit down for this,’ he said, pulling out a chair at the table for her. They both sat down and Betsy slid her thumb across the screen.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi Mum, how’s tricks?’

  ‘Graham, we’re so thrilled to hear from you. Is everything okay?’

  ‘Of course. Yeah, fine. No worries.’

  ‘Oh good,’ Betsy said, smiling at Noel, ‘so no problems or anything, then?’

  ‘I just said everything was fine,’ Graham said, the irritation in his voice making her blush. ‘I thought you might have grown out of that doomsayer’s habit.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Betsy said quickly, ‘I didn’t mean . . . it’s just we don’t really hear from you, so I did just hope . . .’

  Across the table, Noel was frowning. Betsy thought he couldn’t hear Graham’s end of the conversation, but he was obviously picking up on the tenor of it from her reaction.

  ‘Sorry, darling,’ she said, forcing herself to be composed. ‘Just me being a silly worrier. So all’s well, that’s fantastic. How are you keeping?’

  ‘Grand. No complaints. I just rang to ask you something. But don’t freak out, okay?’

  ‘What do you want to ask?’ Betsy said, looking steadily at Noel.

  ‘Well, I was thinking of coming back. To Ireland. And I just wanted to know if I’d be welcome to visit with you guys. To stay in the house, I mean, while I’m there.’

  Betsy felt like her heart was going to explode.

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ she said. ‘We would absolutely love to see you. We miss you, Graham. If you’re coming back, your father and I will be so happy to have you here. I’m so delighted. So is your dad.’ She looked over at Noel, who was not so much delighted as processing, but she was sure he’d get there in the end.

  ‘So how long will you stay?’ she asked tentatively. In the past when she’d questioned him, he flew off the handle and told her she was meddling again.

  ‘Well, it’ll be just for a visit. So I’m guessing two weeks, maybe three.’ It suddenly struck Betsy that he sounded utterly exhausted. Maybe life in Australia wasn’t all fun and games anymore, or maybe, please God, he was going through a break-up?

  ‘Stay as long as you want. The longer, the better. And are you coming alone?’ She held up her hand, with fingers crossed, and Noel put his hand over his mouth to stop the snort of laughter.

  ‘No, I’ll have Tasha with me,’ he said. ‘Is that okay?’

  Betsy uncrossed her fingers and made a face at Noel. ‘Yes, she’s very welcome too, of course. I’ll make up a nice room for you.’

  Her heart dropped like a stone at the thought of sharing space with Tasha, but she’d welcome the devil himself if it meant she got to see her son.

  ‘Actually, I’ve another surprise for you,’ he said.

  ‘A surprise?’ Betsy said. ‘What else?’

  ‘The thing is, em, we’ve got a son. He’s called Arnie and we’ll be bringing him too.’

  Betsy felt like her face had gone numb. It wouldn’t work itself into an expression of any sort. Noel was staring at her anxiously.

  ‘Pardon?’ she said. ‘You’ve got . . .’ she looked at Noel, ‘. . . a son?’

  She thought Noel was going to fall out of his chair. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. If she hadn’t been so much in shock herself, it would have made her giggle.

  ‘Yeah, I kept meaning to tell you, Mum,’ Graham was saying into her ear, ‘but you know how time passes and all that, yea
h?’

  Betsy was too stunned to answer him. A grandson. A whole entire new person and he hadn’t thought to tell her? The rush of love she felt was accompanied by a rush of unbridled anger. How could he not tell them this? She suddenly realised that she had missed what Graham had been saying.

  ‘Mum? So can you help?’ he said, sounding irritated. ‘I’m a bit pressed for time. I’ve got to get to work. So what do you think?’

  ‘Hold on a minute,’ said Betsy, her voice shaking with the anger she was trying hard to control. ‘We’ve barely heard from you for the past six years. When we saw you last you were so unwelcoming and rude that you made us feel ashamed that we’d done such a poor job of raising you. Now you’re dropping a bomb and acting as if we’re the ones being odd! Now just cop on here, Graham, really.’

  There was a pause as he obviously registered just how strong her emotions were.

  ‘Okay. I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding anything but. ‘I was saying there’s an issue with my ticket home. We can’t really afford it.’

  ‘You can’t afford your ticket?’

  ‘Well, I can’t afford any of them – mine or Tasha’s. I suppose Arnie might go free. But if you want to see us, you’ll have to help me out, okay?’

  ‘You need the money for two return tickets?’ Betsy asked.

  Noel flung up his hands and looked disgusted. She could tell he was about to shout ‘No!’ at the phone, but she looked at him pleadingly. She put her hand over the phone and whispered, ‘Please, love. I want to meet our grandson.’

  ‘How old is the baby?’ Betsy asked.

  ‘Four months,’ said Graham.

  Betsy blinked back tears as she tried to digest the information. How could their own son have kept this from them?

  Noel was nodding at her.

  ‘That’s no problem at all, darling. You just tell us how much you need and give me the bank details and Dad will send the money.’ She smiled gratefully at her husband. Graham had some cheek, but family mattered far more than money.