Jumping in Puddles

by Claire Allan

  “I’m a working man, love. I need to build my strength up.”

  “That may well have been true in the days when you were actually lifting and carrying on the site, but given that you spend most of your days now sat on your rear in the office, I’m not convinced.”

  “I’ve the constitution of an ox.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” Laura had said, pouring a glass of cranberry juice for herself. “That you’ll not only have the constitution of an ox, but the figure of an ox too.”

  Liam had sighed every time they had this conversation and smiled, kissing his wife on the forehead and heading out anyway.

  As he ordered his usual and opened the paper for a read, he wondered if Laura would still be with him if he had managed to keep on the porridge? Surely it wasn’t as simple as his expanding waistline. He still had a nice bit of muscle tone, even if he did say so himself. Sure James fecking Byrne was skinny as a whippet. Wimpy skinny. How anyone could find him attractive was beyond Liam entirely.

  The bell above the door pinged and running in out of the rain was Detta O’Neill, looking suitably frazzled.

  “By God, it’s pelting it down out there today. So much for the Indian summer we were promised,” she said to the young girl behind the counter.

  “It is nearly Hallowe’en, Mrs O’Neill,” the girl replied, “but there does seem to be a big change in the temperature all right.”

  “Indeed there is. Now could you get me one of those gorgeous treacle scones, smothered in butter, and a big pot of tea, please?”

  The girl nodded and Detta turned to face Liam, who smiled at her while he tried to hide behind his paper. But as he was sitting close to the fire, Detta made a beeline for him.

  “You don’t mind if I sit here, do you? I’m chilled to the bone.”

  Liam felt his heart sink a little. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Detta – he thought she was a great woman altogether – but he knew that if they were seen chattering away it would just feed the gossipmongers of Rathinch. He was already concerned enough about taking Ciara home after their last meeting. All he needed now was a reputation of being a sleazy old man. However, he couldn’t really say no, could he? So he nodded and moved over a little bit. Perhaps a reputation as the village Lothario wouldn’t be a bad thing? It would show that skinny snotter James Byrne anyway.

  “So how are things?” Detta asked, drying her face with a napkin.

  “Ach, not so bad. Off to work later.”

  “Have you plans for Hallowe’en then? From what I can tell half of Rathinch is going up to Derry.”

  “Yes, well, Poppy is looking to take a run up. Now I just have to put together a ‘Dorothy’ costume in the next few days or face her wrath. I tell you, that one gets her temper from her mother.”

  Detta smiled. “I have an old sewing machine not doing much in my spare room. I’m sure I’ll be able to whip something up. I used to be quite the seamstress in my day.”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Liam said, sipping from his cup of tea.

  “You’re not asking, I’m offering, and you should know by now not to say no to a Rathinch woman.”

  Liam laughed. He admired the fact that Detta took no prisoners – she said what she meant instead of playing silly little games. He also realised he was unlikely to get as good an offer again and he wasn’t exactly all that handy with the needle and thread.

  “Okay, then, and thank you,” he said.

  “Great. I’ll pick up some material and call around this evening.”

  Looking around her, Detta saw that the cafe was relatively quiet and leant towards him. “So I’m guessing then, from how you’re talking, that Laura and James haven’t included young Poppy in their holiday plans? Is the wee poppet okay with that?”

  “She is very resilient. God knows, I don’t think I have her forgiving streak. I’m going to talk to Laura about it all today – you know, find out what’s going on in her brain. I just don’t know how she could leave our little girl like that.”

  Feeling his voice wobble, the emotion getting the better of him, Liam took a breath and straightened himself in his chair. He would have to remember this was not the community centre on a Tuesday night. This cosy little cafe – with its roaring fire and pictures of the great and the good of Rathinch staring down from every wall – was Gossip Central to the villagers and it would not do at all to be seen losing his cool here.

  Detta just sat back, and smiled gently. “I hope you get some answers, Liam. For what it’s worth I don’t understand it either, but then Lord only knows what is going on in her head at the moment. She always struck me as quite sensible – I can’t see what the appeal of your man is.”

  “I wouldn’t say that to Ruth if I was you,” Liam replied, with a smile.

  “Well, I don’t think Ruth wants him back. She might look as though she is hanging on by a thread, but if you ask me she’s doing better without him. But still, we shouldn’t talk about people behind their backs. How is work going anyway?”

  * * *

  It had been two weeks since Liam last saw Laura. It was strange, he thought. He was so used to seeing her every day – to hearing the minutiae of her day’s work – that he could hardly believe the majority of their conversations were now conducted via email or over the phone.

  Opening the door to the solicitor’s office where she worked as a paralegal, he felt sick to his stomach. Clodagh, the well-meaning receptionist, looked at him and turned a delightful shade of pink. Where before she would have struck up a conversation with him should he visit, chatting nineteen to the dozen about Poppy, now she seemed stuck for words.

  Liam couldn’t say that he blamed her. There weren’t many things you could say to a forty-seven-year-old Donegal man consigned to the scrapheap.

  “Is Laura in?” he asked and Clodagh nodded before lifting the phone and dialling her extension.

  “Liam’s here,” she chirped, then put the phone down and gave him a half smile. “She’ll be out in a minute. Have a seat.”

  She used to always laugh when she called Laura. “The love of your life is here,” she would giggle before chatting some more with him while he waited. It would be churlish – not to mention extremely embarrassing – for him to make a scene about Clodagh’s lack of flirtatious banter so he walked to the seats, sat down and started flicking through a well thumbed copy of Ulster Tatler.

  When the door creaked open he looked up and his heart skipped a beat. Strange that he had never really understood that sensation until the first day he laid eyes on Laura Casey and every day since his heart had skipped a beat when she smiled at him. She was standing there in a tailored red skirt-suit, her blonde hair twisted into a loose pony-tail. She gave him the same half smile Clodagh had, except the warmth was missing from her eyes.

  “Are you free to talk for a few minutes?” he asked.

  Laura looked at her watch and then at him. “Well, I’ve a client coming in soon, but if you make it quick.”

  He followed her into the office. She took her seat behind the desk and he sat down on the opposite side, feeling very much as if he was about to start discussing an upcoming appearance in the circuit court rather than his concerns for their daughter.

  He took a deep breath. “Look, there is no point in me beating around the bush, especially if you’re seeing someone soon, so I’ll come out with it. This is about Poppy. I know you’re going off this weekend with James and his children and I’m assuming that Poppy is not part of that excursion, and well, I just wanted to know what was happening.”

  Liam was impressed with his use of the word “excursion”. The lawyer-y setting was obviously rubbing off on him in a good way. He hoped Laura would be equally impressed with the coolness of his tone. She didn’t like melodrama – especially not from him.

  Laura sighed. “James’s kids are having difficulty coming to terms with the separation. They miss him desperately.”

  Liam bit back a snort – that was certa
inly not the impression Ruth had given him at the support group meetings – and besides, what about how much Poppy was missing her mum?

  “We thought if we take them away now, I could take her somewhere the next weekend – just me and her. It would be too much with James’ kids too.”

  “You know she’ll think she’s less important than them.”

  Laura rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Liam. Sure don’t I take her out one night a week and at weekends and ruin her stupid?”

  “She’d prefer it if you lived in the same house as her.” Liam had dropped his voice to a whisper, even though there was no one else in the office.

  Laura sighed and for a second – just that briefest of moments – he thought he was getting somewhere with her. He thought perhaps he’d finally found her heartstrings and given them a good old twanging.

  “I’d prefer she were in the same house as me too,” she said, her eyes pooling over with tears, “but, Liam, she’s a daddy’s girl and always has been. I might be many things, but I’m not so cruel as to take her away from you. You know that’s why I left her and I’ll do my best to make it up.”

  He wanted to shout. He wanted to tell her that her best was simply not good enough – not by a long shot – but when he saw her, Bambi eyes dripping tears, her face wretched with emotion, he couldn’t shout. He couldn’t give out to her at all.

  Laura was right, Poppy was a daddy’s girl – through and through. From the moment she was born she had craved her daddy’s attention more than anyone. She would settle quickest on his chest as he cradled her after his long day’s work. When she started crawling she headed straight for him, pulling herself up on her pudgy legs to him and he would walk, never tiring, bent double with her little hands in his. Even when she became steady on her own two feet, she would walk beside him, hand clasped in his.

  That’s not to say she didn’t love her mother – the two could be thick as thieves as they plastered each other in make-up and glittery lip-gloss, but when she wanted that extra feeling of security it was her daddy she had called for.

  For Laura it had been the best thing to do to leave Poppy with her daddy when she left. The wisdom of Solomon.

  “Come home,” he said, almost pleading.

  “You know I can’t,” she said, her tears drying almost instantly.

  “Why not?” he asked – as much for himself as for Poppy.

  “I don’t think here and now is the place to talk about this. This is my place of work.”

  “Well, when can we talk then, Laura? Because we do need to talk.” He hoped his voice had an ounce of coolness in it.

  “I’ll call you when we get back,” Laura said, standing up and walking to the door. “Tell Poppy I love her,” she added, showing him out and turning on her heel to walk back into her office, leaving him standing like a wet rag in the hall.

  He took a deep breath, pulled his tummy in and walked out of the building, trying to hold his head as high as possible.

  * * *

  Detta was a natural with Poppy, Liam realised as he watched his daughter twirl in front of his friend in her blue gingham dress.

  “Daddy, don’t I look pretty? Aren’t I like the very real Dorothy?” Poppy beamed. “You are indeed,” Liam replied, sitting back in his chair and beaming with pride at his daughter.

  “Ach no,” Detta smiled, “you can’t be Dorothy yet – you don’t have the ruby slippers.”

  Poppy’s face fell and she let go of her dress and stopped twirling.

  “Don’t worry, pet,” Detta said. “I just happened to be in Penneys earlier and saw these sparkly pumps.” Lifting a bag from under the table she took out two shiny red shoes and Poppy’s smile was restored.

  “You needn’t have done that,” Liam blushed. He wasn’t used to random acts of kindness. There weren’t many of those about at the builder’s yard. You were lucky if one of the tight feckers included you on the bun run without demanding a euro from you for your bap.

  “Sure it’s nothing. It’s only Penneys – nothing fancy – and we can’t be having Dorothy without the ruby slippers.”

  “But how did you know her size?” Liam asked, amazed because for the life of him he couldn’t remember it himself.

  “A woman knows these things,” Detta said.

  “Glad someone does. I’m useless at the details,” he confided, wondering what it was about this woman that made him spill out his innermost thoughts. It was really quite disconcerting – how he couldn’t seem to shut up when she was about, even though he barely knew her from Adam.

  He’d seen her around the village recently. She was a hard one to miss. With her bright coloured skirts and long cardigans, and her hair blowing wildly in the wind, she caught everyone’s attention. If he wasn’t still so madly in love with Laura he would have found her attractive – in a windswept and interesting kind of a way.

  He knew he didn’t know much about her – her life, why she had been away from Rathinch for so long and indeed why she had come back. It was rare, Liam thought, that when anyone left Rathinch they came back. This place had invented the brain drain.

  Poppy stopped twirling and climbed onto her daddy’s knee. “Daddy, you are best daddy in the whole world,” she said, before turning to Detta. “Do you know he is taking me up to Derry for Hallowe’en and we are going to see the fireworks. Would you like to come with us?”

  Poppy’s enthusiasm was overwhelming, and Liam couldn’t help but think it wasn’t the worst prospect in the world. It was the least he could do after Detta’s sewing efforts anyway, so he nodded that she was more than welcome to join them on their night out.

  “You know, I think I would like that and,” she smiled, looking at him, “maybe we could ask Niamh and the twins, and Ruth and Ciara too for that matter. I think it’s about time we had a group outing. I could bring the old mini-bus.”

  Liam’s heart sank to his boots. It wasn’t that he didn’t think all the ladies were nice in their own way but the thought of a couple of hours in a mini-bus with them and a heap of wains was intimidating. They’d no doubt be up for sing-songs and all that old nonsense. He could feel a headache starting at the back of his neck already, but looking at Detta and Poppy who were now dancing around singing ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead’ together, he knew that just like on every other occasion in his life he would give in to female pressure.

  * * *

  Poppy was in bed and Liam was still muttering about how exactly he’d like the Wicked Witch to die when the phone rang.

  “Is that you, son?” his mother asked and he bit back the urge to answer that no, it wasn’t, it was Daniel O’Donnell and he, Liam, had actually run off with some seventeen-year-old down the road and wasn’t planning on coming back – ever.

  “Yes, Mum. Are you okay? It’s late,” he said instead.

  “I heard that – that – thing you were married to is swanning off for the weekend with her fancy man!” Her voice was dripping with indignation.

  Liam sighed, sat down and prepared himself for at least fifteen minutes of defending his wife to the woman who had taken against her from the first time they’d met. He rubbed his temples and he couldn’t help but wish just for a second that she would give it a rest. She meant well – he knew that – but she didn’t often achieve her goal of wellness.

  “Yes, Mum, she is going away with James, and his children too for that matter.” He figured he might as well pre-empt her next piece of juicy gossip.

  “And Poppy? Is she taking her own daughter with her?” Agnes was almost apoplectic with anger by now.

  “No. She is going to take her away on her own some time.”

  “Oh son, you know I never liked her – but now, well, now I hate her, and God forgive me for saying this, but I wish you had never met her. The only good thing she ever did was have that wee girl.”

  Liam sat back and tuned out of his mother’s tirade. He knew that she was wrong. Laura had done so many wonderful things during their time togethe
r. She had made him feel like a real man – had looked after him, cared for him, loved him. She made him laugh till his sides ached. She made him feel proud to be alive when she was by his side and she had been the best possible mother in the world to their daughter.

  He knew she had changed – and he couldn’t understand why – but he couldn’t give up on her now. He could not let the last few months, no matter how they had humiliated and crushed him, override the years they had spent together. He wished his mother would understand that but he knew when it came to her and Laura he was fighting a losing battle.

  He let his mother rattle off a long list of Laura’s faults and then replied, with as much control as he could muster. “Yes, I know you don’t think much of her, but we’ve talked about the weekend and it’s fine.”

  The worst thing he could do now was let Agnes know that his heart was breaking. She would be moved in before he could say “No, thank you” and have the armchairs of his prized leather suite covered in her blasted doilies. His canvas prints would no doubt be replaced by Sacred Heart pictures and musty old watercolours and he would not be able to breathe out without her commenting on it and praying for a safe intake of breath to follow.

  It was half an hour before Agnes realised he wasn’t biting and ended their phone call. Liam walked to the fridge, pulled out a cold beer, sank back into his chair and switched on the TV. Bloody Sky, he paid a small fortune for it and there was still nothing on. Surprisingly, that was one of the things he missed about Laura the most – just sitting chatting together in the evenings. Not the sex. Though at the time he’d had a niggling suspicion she was chatting to avoid the sex. She would tell him about life in the office and he would tell her about their latest building project. Of course, she never bothered to tell him she was shagging somebody else, but then that probably wouldn’t have gone down well over a bottle of wine in front of the fire.