Jumping in Puddles

by Claire Allan

  The night before had been strange. Despite his misgivings he had wanted to feel comfortable and when Detta had talked about healing their hurt he had felt a moment of hope – the first that he had felt in a long time. But then the girls – sorry, women – had started talking and had stopped just short of stating that “All men are bastards.”

  Liam knew he wasn’t a bastard. He wasn’t perfect – he was man enough to admit that, but he hadn’t made life unbearable for Laura. They had been happy. Yes, she was younger than him and he had spent a lot of their time together wondering why she had chosen him. Greying round the temples, he had the look of a rather weather-worn George Clooney about him – Clooney without the Hollywood sheen. Laura had often told him she loved how he looked, his physical strength, his burly stature, but that, he conceded, had been a long time ago. Laura hadn’t been happy in a while. She had lost her sparkle and Liam hated that he hadn’t acted on that when he noticed her light dimming, but he had been too busy at work – trying to make her happy by bringing home a decent wage. And when, after a while, she started smiling again he was too caught up in how well his business was doing to think that it could be down to anything other than his success and the mountains of new clothes and handbags in her wardrobe. Until the day she left, and that was the same day Liam promised he would do anything he could to get her back.

  After all, he hadn’t done anything wrong. It had been “one of those things” – a falling out of love on her part. He certainly hadn’t fallen out of love with her. Still, unless he gave up building houses and extensions in favour of counting money in the bank and wearing pastel-coloured pullovers which accentuated his professionally whitened teeth, he figured he had feck all chance of getting her back.

  She’d made that clear on one of the many occasions they had met – her with the intention of making arrangements for Poppy – him with the intention of doing everything in his power to get her back.

  On the first visit, he’d brought her flowers. A bunch of gorgeous wild blooms, fragrant and romantic. They wouldn’t look out of place in a Flake ad as the gorgeous model ran through a barley field before collapsing in a chocolate-induced coma.

  She had smiled, a little sadly, left them on the table in front of him and arranged to pick Poppy up every Thursday from school for some quality time.

  On the second attempt he brought perfume – Chanel No.5, her favourite – and some chocolates. She hadn’t smiled. In fact, she had shaken her head and he’d had to fight back the tears.

  “Tell me why?” he asked, opening the chocolates himself.

  “It just happened,” she replied.

  As he bit into a caramel crunch, he wondered how affairs just happened. It wasn’t like he never had a woman look at him. There had been a series of randy housewives who had practically thrown themselves at his feet – whether it was through lust or the thought of a discount on their loft conversions he didn’t know. He always said no. He knew right from wrong. He knew who he loved.

  He would have asked her how affairs “just happened” that time but he didn’t have the strength.

  On the third visit he brought her wedding ring, polished and cleaned at the jeweller’s.

  “I’ll keep it for when Poppy is older,” Laura said. “To show her mummy and daddy did love each other once.”

  “We still could,” he said.

  “I love James.”

  His heart caramel-crunched at those words.

  He silenced the “but whys” in his head and cursed the day Laura had come home to say she was going to be working on a big legal case up at the bank. She’d been so excited that he couldn’t help but be excited too for her. And after she started trailing up the road each day, briefcase swinging from her shoulder, smile on her face, he saw her light up and felt even more in love with her than ever.

  Until the day of the note on the worktop.

  He would have said he never saw it coming, but in hindsight he probably did. Maybe he should just be happy that she was happy again. Didn’t Sting or some other such gobshite sing about that? If you love someone, let them run off with the bank manager and leave you like a cold snotter on your own. It went something like that, anyway.

  God, if the fellas in the yard found out about this they would have a fecking field day. He wouldn’t be able to show his face any more. Sighing and breathing in, patting his still relatively flat stomach, he strutted back to his desk and set about making the orders for the new build.

  Just then the phone rang and he lifted it, shaking thoughts of Laura and his train-wreck of a life from his head as he tried to put his best professional foot forward.

  “Liam Dougherty speaking, what can I do for you this fine morning?” he said jovially, fully aware that clients old and new responded well to his down-to-earth manner.

  “Son,” Agnes said, “I just wanted to check on you and see if you needed anything. I’m cooking a stew for my lunch and I thought I might drop some over for your tea.”

  His heart sank in that special way it always sank when he heard his mother’s dulcet tones on the phone. “Thanks, Mum, but I’m fine. I’m taking Poppy out for tea tonight. We thought we might go into Letterkenny and grab a pizza or maybe up to Derry for a McDonald’s.”

  “That’s not proper food. I’ll bring dinner over and then at least that wee pet will have one good meal in her today,” Agnes sniffed.

  Liam felt his blood pressure rise. “Mum, we’re fine. She’s having a good lunch at school and then I promised her a special treat tonight. Maybe we’ll come over tomorrow for dinner? Would that be okay?”

  “No, no, that won’t do,” she tutted. “I’ll come over to you and that way I can get stuck into the cleaning and the washing.”

  “Mum, there is no need. I’m on top of it, and besides I’m thinking of getting a cleaner in to make life a little easier.” As soon as he said it, he knew he had said the wrong thing. Agnes Dougherty would not tolerate a cleaner in her son’s home. Oh, the shame of someone else hoking through his personal belongings when she could be having a good nosy herself!

  “Why on earth would you need a cleaner when you have me? Sure I’m free and I can do a better job than any cleaner. God knows I’d do a better job than Laura did – that girl wasn’t exactly house-proud, was she? I mean, the cobwebs in your light fittings, it’s a wonder Poppy doesn’t have asthma and eczema and all those other nasty illnesses. I mean, really, Kim and Aggie would have a field day in your bathroom.”

  Liam rolled his eyes at the phone. “Mum, you are too old to be cleaning my house. You should be relaxing and enjoying yourself, not running after me and Poppy. We don’t want you tiring yourself out. We need you too much.”

  He hoped his soft-soaping would be enough to put her off but he should have known that his mother would not be deterred so easily. She seemed only too happy to slot into the void that Laura had left and Liam knew it was only a matter of time before she would suggest that she move in and help full-time. She had already expressed her disgust with the fact that Poppy was attending an after-school club.

  “Sure she could come down to her granny’s and keep me company?” she had said and it had taken a great deal of gentle persuasion before she had dropped the issue. Liam had talked her round by having Poppy visit each Sunday afternoon. He hadn’t the heart to tell her that spending any more than three hours watching the EastEnders Omnibus with her doting granny would have sent Poppy loopy. The after-school club was much more fun than knitting lessons and recitations of the Rosary every afternoon.

  “Look, I’ll come over and clean,” she insisted. “How about this weekend we set about decluttering? I’ll get a few boxes from the supermarket. Maybe we can box up some of madam’s stuff and send it on to her and her new man?”

  Liam sighed. “Mum, we’ll not be decluttering this weekend or any weekend. Now, I’m going to get a cleaner in and then with the extra time I have we’ll spend a bit more time together. I don’t want to hear any arguing at all.”

/>   Agnes hung up with a grunt and Liam’s heart sank to his boots.

  Fecking women. He sat back in his chair and felt completely emasculated. Between his mother, his wife and that floaty-skirted hippy Detta O’Neill he was pretty bloody sure he was in real danger of turning into a fecking woman one of these days.

  10

  It was Monday morning and Niamh was standing apprehensively outside the door of Seán’s law firm. She hadn’t been back since he died. She had spoken to Kevin, his partner in the law firm a few times, and of course he and the rest of the staff had come to the funeral and sent a massive display of flowers – despite the fact she had asked for family flowers only. But then, she guessed, Seán had spent more time at the office than he had at home. And the law firm liked to keep up appearances.

  She didn’t resent his devotion to his work while he was alive, because when he was home he dedicated every second to her and the children, revelling in the role of perfect husband and father, but now that he was gone she couldn’t help but think of all the times he could have been with her.

  If she had known what was going to happen, she would have spent more time drinking him in – remembering the feel of his hands, the softness of his lips, the strength in his body, the feeling of him inside her. But, she thought, wiping a tear away and locking the car, she wasn’t ever going to feel him inside her again.

  She had made an extra effort that morning, washing her hair, blow-drying it and using her straighteners. She had dressed to impress – in one of the designer suits Seán had bought her when she was still working for him – and had used more than just some loose powder for make-up. Her eye-liner had felt alien in her hand as she slicked it on while Rachel sat on the edge of the big sleigh bed, mesmerised by her mother’s transformation.

  “You look pretty, Mummy,” she’d said and she ran to wrap her chubby arms around Niamh’s neck and kiss her cheek.

  “And so do you, princess,” Niamh had smiled back “Now are you both ready to go and see Granny? She’s told me she’s going to bake buns this afternoon and she needs two very special helpers.”

  “But, Mummy,” Rachel said, her eyes wide and her expression serious, “baking is for girls. Connor is no good. He always wants to eat the mix before we put it in the bun cases and then he cries when we don’t let him.”

  “Now, Rachel, you have to be patient with your brother and let him learn so he can help.”

  “S’not fair,” Rachel huffed, crossing her arms defiantly.

  She had been used to getting her granny to herself – Connor always went to Daddy’s office instead but Niamh didn’t think for one second it would be appropriate to take him in there now and have everyone stare at him like he was a little boy lost.

  Niamh resisted the urge to snap back that life wasn’t fair. Her daughter was only three for God’s sake and her life had been turned upside down too and Niamh knew she was getting off easy if the only thing causing her daughter upset was having to share licking a bowl when making buns with her favourite granny.

  Now Niamh straightened her skirt and walked to the law firm door. She felt odd buzzing the door to be let in – like she was visiting a house she no longer lived in, in a place where she no longer fitted.

  Kevin wore a suitably sombre expression as he hugged her. Despite the seriousness of the situation. Niamh had to force back the urge to laugh. His face looked almost constipated with the effort of dealing with her.

  “It’s good to see you, Niamh,” he said, inviting her to sit down at the boardroom table.

  He buzzed through to reception for coffee to be brought in and they exchanged some meaningless chat about the weather and the traffic while waiting for it.

  “How have you been anyway?” he asked then, dunking a Rich Tea into his coffee, lifting the soggy biscuit to his mouth and slurping it – as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  For a split second, she fantasised that he would choke on his biscuit and she could stand above him and say, “Pretty shit actually, how about you?” as he breathed his last.

  Niamh had learned pretty damn quickly that very few people actually expected or wanted you to answer this question truthfully. They didn’t want to hear how there were days when you actually wanted to crawl out of your body to escape the feeling of dread.

  “Fine, things are fine. You know, getting better.”

  “It will be tough for a while yet,” Kevin said, imparting the words as if they were new to Niamh and as if she should be grateful for him sharing that information with her. He always was a cocky, annoying bastard.

  “Yes,” she said, “it will.”

  “And I suppose today won’t be easy, will it?”

  If stating the obvious was an Olympic sport, Kevin would no doubt be a gold-medal winner.

  “No, it won’t,” Niamh said, “but it has to be done.”

  “I don’t like putting you under pressure, but life has to go on. It is what Seán would have wanted.”

  Niamh was pretty sure, however, that if you had sat Seán down and asked him what he would have wanted, his answer would not have been to be dead, buried and have his wife and former business partner about to pack up his office into boxes so that someone new could start working in his precious company, making all his money and schmoozing with all his clients. Nope, Seán really, really would have hated all this.

  “And you know, he would have wanted the business to go on. He would have been delighted with the new man we’ve hired. He’s young, full of enthusiasm. We’re totally on the same wavelength as to where we want the practice to go. You know, Seán left some pretty big shoes to fill but the new guy should do a good job.”

  Niamh wondered why Kevin was telling her this. She wondered why on earth he thought for even one second she would care to hear about the young man who would be slipping into her husband’s shoes and sitting on his chair in his office talking to his clients. She wondered why she didn’t just tell Kevin to fuck off, but then what would be the point? He would always be an asshole. Plenty had told him to fuck off before now and plenty would in the future and he would remain blissfully unaware of just what a prick he was. Yes, watching him choke on a soggy Rich Tea would really, really make her happy about now.

  Niamh just nodded. “We should really get started,” she said, her heart heavy.

  Seán‘s office was just as he had left it – down to the moulding teacup on the desk. Someone could have at least tidied that, Niamh thought before wrapping her hand around it trying to feel some hint of him.

  She sat down at his desk and looked at the piles of paperwork in front of her. Doodles on dusty paper. The only things which had been moved were his open court files – couldn’t have the firm losing business now, could they? She saw the picture of her with the twins when they were less than twenty-four hours old, smiling at her from his desk and she felt her heart swell with love for her gorgeous Seán. Touching it gently, she consoled herself that this would have been one of the last things he saw before he got into his car on that fateful night.

  Kevin bustled back in, handing her boxes to store away her husband’s possessions. “I can help, if you want,” he offered, not catching her gaze, and when Niamh said it was fine, that she could manage on her own, he looked distinctly relieved.

  A coward as well as a complete eejit, it seemed.

  When the door closed she opened the drawers and started shuffling through the paperwork – the salt sachets from the sandwich bar across the street and the piles and piles of letters and Post-it notes.

  She should sort them all meticulously, but her heart wasn’t in it. She just piled the boxes high and decided she would look at them another day – just as she would sort through his clothes another day and pack away all traces of his life. She would do it in the comfort of her own home, not in the coldness of this office where she was now convinced all the secretaries were standing with glasses against the door dying to hear her break down and sob.

  Seán had loved this place. Niamh
used to joke that he loved it more than he loved her and of course he would smile and say it just wasn’t possible. She was his best girl and sure didn’t he just work hard so he could take her away from all of “this”?

  Piling yet more paperwork along with family photos into a sturdy cardboard box on the table, and dusting down the desk – the desk she had once made love to Seán on top of – she sighed.

  It has to be a lie, she thought to herself, that it ever gets easier. It never will.

  When the boot of her silver Mercedes was filled with boxes, she walked across the street to the Sandwich Company where Robyn was waiting to share a coffee with her.

  “Was it awful?” her friend asked, standing up to kiss her on the cheek.

  Niamh nodded, flopping into the seat and staring at a broken nail which was annoying the hell out of her.

  “It was weird that he wasn’t there. I felt like I was letting him down – packing up his life like that.”

  Robyn nodded, reaching across the table and rubbing Niamh’s hand. “I’ll get us some coffee and you can off-load as much as you want over some carrot cake.”

  Niamh nodded and sat up, rubbed her eyes and set about reading the paper while Robyn fought her way to the top of the queue for two large cappuccinos and some fine carrot cake with healthy dollops of fresh cream. She figured that she deserved it, as did her friend.

  Niamh and Seán used to come to this cafe every day for lunch. It wasn’t the most romantic of spots, but they would chat about life in and outside of the office and make plans for the “great escape” to Donegal.